



iii^l 














LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

^¥p Guji^iig^ "^ 

IMTED STATES OF AMEKICA. 



A SHEAF OF SONG. 



BENJ. F. LEGGETT. 

Author OF "A Tramp Through Switzerland.' 



Taketh the fruyt and let the ehaf be 6<<7Ze.— Chaucer. 



NEW YORK : 
JOHN. B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER 

1887. 









Copyright, 1887, 

BY 

BENJ. F. LEGGETT, 



"ARGYLE PRESS," 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING, 
84 & 26 WOOSTER ST., N, Y. 



TO MY MOTHER 

THESE GLEANINGS FROM THE 

HARVEST FIELDS OF MANY YEARS 

ARE AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

The Ballad of the King. 7 

Capri 13 

Burns' Birthday 15 

The Comet 18 

Eventide 19 

Threescore 19 

A Morning Song 21 

Possession 22 

Castle Windows 22 

Beyond 24 

Outward Bound 25 

On the Heights 26 

Alpine Echoes 27 

A Word for Shakespeare 28 

Anniversary , 30 

Our Baby 31 

An Autumn Idyl 32 

Ruins 33 

Another Year 36 

Consider the Lilies 36 

In Camp 37 

December 39 

To J. E 40 

An Ancestral Ode 41 

On a Fir-cone from Bayard Taylor's Grave 44 

Indian Summer , 45 

An Old Story Retold 46 

Old and New 48 

In Springtime 49 

Peter Cooper 50 

The Children's Day 51 



2 CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

On Eeading an Old Poet 55 

To E. A. B 56 

October 56 

Mt. McGregor— July 23, 1885 59 

A Song in the Night 59 

Sugar Time 61 

At Last 61 

Chippewanoxetti 63 

Birthday 63 

Nature's Plan 64 

To H. W. Longfellow 65 

On Pilgrimage 66 

At Cedarcroft 66 

To my Mother on her Birthday 68 

Only Four 70 

June 71 

In War-time— 1864 73 

To G. G. B 74 

Lake Albano 74 

An Alpine Lake 75 

In the Hammock 76 

On a Fossil Shell 77 

The First Decade 78 

In the Soudan 80 

Orion 82 

Ponte St. Angelo 82 

Round Lake 83 

Thanksgiving— 1866 86 

Keats' Grave 87 

To Oliver Wendell Holmes 88 

Ravenswood 88 

My Inheritance 91 

Christmas 93 

In Peace 95 

At Dawn 95 

April Days 96 

Some After-Supper Lines 97 

At the Gate ,100 

To John G. Whittier .101 

Our Refuge 102 



CONTENTS. 3 

PAGE. 

Enfranchised 103 

Only Two Summers 104 

Under the Willows 106 

After the War 108 

Day by Day Ill 

The New Succession Ill 

Trust 112 

The New Year 113 

King Midas 114 

My Quest 117 

A Battle Relic 118 

The Herb Called Heart's-Ease 120 

On the Hills 121 

To H. W. Longfellow on His Birthday 122 

" Watchman ! What of the Night? " 124 

Passing the Light 126 

For the Brave 126 

For a Crystal Wedding 127 

Decoration Day 130 

A New Year's Greeting— To J. G. W 131 

To a Dead Poet 132 

Dickens in Westminster Abbey 133 

Lines read on the Tenth Anniversary of St. John's Lit- 
erary Association, Sept. 17, 1885 134 

The Dying Year 145 

Gladstone 146 

To a Nonagenarian 146 

For a Silver Wedding 147 

Morning ., 148 

Absence 149 

A Summer Madrigal 150 

The Age of Gold 151 



A SHEAF OF POEMS. 



THE BALLAD OF THE KING. 

What dawns would light the world again, 

What shadows flee away, 
What angels walk once more with men 

If only Love held sway ! 

An olden story : — ponder well 

This legend here re-told, 
How love dissolved a wicked spell 

In knightly days of old. 

'Twas in the age of old renown — 
Long since the years have flown. 

But still their glory fading down 
Regilds with light our own. 

Then Arthur ruled with gentle sway 

And woke the minstrel song. 
And mail-clad men in grand array. 

Went forth against the wrong. 

No baffled cause might vainly plead 
For aid in knightly ear, 



A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

For Arthur's self gave royal heed 
To beauty's smile and tear. 

'Twas while he bravely fought and well 

For maid in castle wall, 
That he, through dire enchantment's spell, 

Became a lowly thrall. 

Now in brave Arthur's fallen state 
The king shone true and grand, 

As when with his retainers late. 
He rode through all the land. 

The wizard marked his royal grace 
And signed that they should bring 

His lowly captive face to face 
With him, the mighty king ! 

" Vain man ! go forth beneath my spell 

A twelvemonth and a day. 
If then your wisdom answers well 

My question — go your way. 

"But if the tale is then untold 

What women one and all, 
Do more desire than fame, or gold. 

Ye still shall be my thrall." 

Then with the sun the king rode forth 
And wandered east and west. 

Through sunny south and frozen north 
Upon his royal quest. 

And while he roamed the summer passed, 
And autumn tints of flame. 



THE BALLAD OF THE KING. 9 

Burned low to ashen gray at last, 
And still no answer came. 

The winter fled and spring grew gay 

With violets hidden long; 
That bloomed beside his weary way, 

And earth was glad with song. 

All vainly seemed the quest to grow 

Till once he drew his rein. 
At sight of one so foul and low, 

He spurned her with disdain. 

*'0 captive king, whose blinded zeal 

Doth spurn my low degree. 
Perchance thy quest I may reveal. 

Though foul I am to see." 

" If this thou canst," — his heart was stirred — 

While nearer still he came — 
'• Then thou shalt have, I pledge my word. 

Whatever ye may claim." 

" Then swear me this : — Of those who throng 

Your royal court so wide. 
Some brave young knight, both fair and strong. 

Shall wed me for his bride ! " 

She took this pledge of matchless worth. 

Then did her own fulfill : — 
" What woman values more than earth 

Is but her own sweet will ! " 

Then light of heart King Arthur sought 
Through cool, sweet forest shade. 



10 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

The wizard's home, and answer brought 
The loathsome hag had made. 

And lo ! the spell so strong before 
Could not the truth gainsay — 

The charm was broken, and once more 
The king went on his way. 

Then straight unto his palace wall 

He rode all free and grand, 
No more enchantment's lowly thrall, 

But ruler of the land ! 

Now when for valliant knight and lord 

A royal feast was laid, 
The king rehearsed to all the board 

The pledge which he had made. 

And when he asked of all the band 
Who forth the hag would bring, 

And place upon her withered hand 
The golden wedding-ring ? 

Fair knights who fain would bravely dare 

All foes in beauty's name. 
All hung their heads in silence there 

Beneath the flush of shame. 

Now of King Arthur's royal band 
Who drew the knightly rein 

None truer was in all the land 
Than fair and brave Gewain ! 

The youngest knight was he of all, 
And proudly flashed his eye, 



THE BALLAD OF THE KING. H 

When to his sovereign's royal call 
None older made reply. 

" No royal pledge shall be denied ! 

Bring forth the golden ring : — 
The loathsome hag shall be my bride 

For honor of the king ! " 

And 'mid the summer's passing state 

He clasped the withered hand, 
Of her who in her mean estate 

Was lowest of the land ! 

And so the loathsome and the fair 

Before the king were wed — 
By knight and hag in solemn prayer 

The marriage vows were said. 

But 'ere the royal feast had rest, 

From all the menial train, 
Gewain had heard the whispered jest 

That filled his heart with pain. 

And when the festal hours were flown^— 

The bridal chamber nigh, 
So sad of heart the knight had grown 

He only longed to die ! 

But when he sought his rest at last 

With weary sigli and moan. 
Before his gaze such beauty passed 

As he had never known ! 

No more in hated hideousness * 

Did she before him stand. 



12 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

But clothed in queeiiliest loveliness ! — 
The beauty of the land ! 

Then did the bride to him confess 

The secret kept so well, 
How all her hated loathsomeness 

Was but the wizard's spell ! 

And since the bridal-ring she wore 
The charm was half o'er- thrown — 

Now half the time that form she bore 
And half the time her own ! 

Now would he choose that she should wear 

Her beauty's sweet array, 
By night when none would know her fair 

Or in the light of day ? 

But when he thought a moment's space 

Of bitter jest and scorn. 
Her beauty in its matchless grace, 

He fain would keep for morn ! 

Then breathing love's divinest stress 

She told in tender tone, 
How all her fairest loveliness 

Was but for him alone ! 

Then with the grace that beauty lent 

The tenderest heart to thrill. 
The gentle knight gave love's consent 

To beauty's own sweet will ! 

And then the charm was wholli/fiown 
By night and day as well, — 



CAPRI. 18 

The love that made his will her own 
Dissolved the wizard's spell. 

Then henceforth queen of beauty grand 

In Arthur's royal train, 
None fairer lived in all the land 

Than bride of brave Gewain ! — 

And still whatever spell may harm, 

What influence grasp and hold, 
Love still retains the potent charm 

It held in days of old ! 

O rosy dawn, light up again 

The glad unclouded day, 
When angels here shall walk with men 

And only Love hold sway ! 



CAPRI. 

BLOOD-EED jaspcr from the haunted bay 
Whose blue waves fondled thee, 

1 marvel that thou wearest not to-day 
The azure of the sea. 

Hast thou no dream within thy warm heart kept 

Of tender skies bent low ? 
Of waves that sang while white foam softly crept 

To touch thy lips with snow ? 

I gaze on thee ; dream-like my eyelids close 

While far sweet glories smile ; 
No more I see the drifted winter snows, 

But Capri's wave-beat isle. 



14 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

The splintered crown of some lone mountain range 

Uplifted bold and free, 
With dizzy crags of beauty wild and strange 

That hang above the sea, 

Alone she stands, arrayed in purple hue 

And fringed with foam and spray. 
Her rifted slopes still mirrored in the blue, 

And sphered by sky and bay. 

Again her paths are trod by eager feet 

Slow toiling from below. 
And from her groves of lemon, cool and sweet 

The airs of summer blow. 

From time-worn crags that watch the beaten shore, 

And landward look and lean, 
St. Elmo's towers, above the azure floor. 

And Ischia's heights are seen. 

And like the incense of an offered prayer 

Or smoke of sacrifice, 
The dread volcano's white breath climbs the air 

And mounts the summer skies. 

A dreamy sound of voices from below 

Floats up along the breeze, 
And like the sea-birds ever come and go 

The ships from Indian seas. 

I seem to hear the lisp of dreaming palms 

From lone Sahara's rim, 
As south winds bring between the pulseless calms 

The desert's wandering hymn. 



BURNS' BIRTHDAY. 

All sounds and voices and the mellow light 

Of that far sunny land, 
Fade out at last before the stormy night 

That beats our Northern strand. 

O blood-red jasper ! warm with sunset glow 
Caught from the wave and sky, 

Thou boldest still above the frost and snow 
The dreams that never die. 



BURNS' BIRTHDAY. 

O ROYAL-HEARTED Robert Burns, 

So tender, true and strong ! 
We crown again his natal day 

With rustic wreath of song. 

In every land, or near or far, 

His gentle name is known ; 
His songs far sweeping round the world 

On wings of fame have flown. 

Through all the dim-aisled century 

His living numbers swell, 
For well the poet wrought his charm 

And wove his magic spell. 

To-day his words are sweeter still 
On music's trembling tongue, 

And all the world is greener far 
Since he has lived and sung. 

While on his hills the gray light dawns, 
The songful day returns, 



16 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

We tread again the bonnie land 
So loved by Robert Burns ! 

What charm lies on her purple heights, 

And on her mea<lows fair, 
As in a dream we wander forth 

A sweet June day in Ayr. 

The flowing waters through the town 

The gray old arches lave, 
And Wallace's tower stands stai-k and still 

To hear the Twa Brigs rave. 

There stands O'Shanter's cozy inn 

A refuge from the storm, 
Where Tarn so gloriously forgot 

The wrath at home so warm ! 

'Mid meadow lands of clover bloom 

And clumps of snowy thorn, 
Beneath the lowly thatch we stand 

Where baby Burns was born ! 

Glad bird-songs with the sunshine come 

To cheer the dusky gloom, 
As though the old sweet lullaby 

Yet lingered in the room. 

Beyond is auld Kirk Alloway, 

All roofless save the sky. 
Where witch -fires lighted up the dark 

As Tarn rode reeling by. 

Ah, how the warlock revel rang, 
And how the windows glowed, 



BUBNS' BIBTHBAY. 17 

Tam by all the clan pursued 
Went thundering down the road! 

Oh, what a goblin ride was that, 

To make the stoutest quail, 
In sooth it saved the man his life, 

But cost gray Meg her tail ! 

The Auld Brig clasps the banks of Doon, 

The river slides away, 
The hoof-beats of that hurried flight 

Will ring and sound for aye. 

The bonnie braes of Doon are glad 
Through winding curves and turns, 

And birds rejieat by burn and mere 
The name of Robin Burns ! 

No daisies bloom beside the way. 

Nor star with pearl and gold 
The broad green belt of meadow-lands, 

But still his memory hold. 

His birthday 'mid the Scottish hills 

Is glad with love and song, 
For dear they hold his precious name, 

And burning hate of wrong : 

For high above the shams of rank, 

Or accident of birth. 
He set the royalty of man 

And loved him for his worth. 

So comes the poet's natal day 
With joy and gladness in : — 



18 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

For him the pure sweet charity 
Which covers every sin. 

Be just : speak not of wasted years, 
But let his virtues shine ; — 

Above his weak humanity 
Was faith in the Divine ! 



THE COMET. 

Fak alone through the chartless seas she came, 

Where never a sail was unfurled, 
Till she shook the reefs from her folded flame 

For a cruise by many a world ! 

Through the measureless years, her red lights 
shone 

On the nebulous whirlpool spray — 
On the trackless surf of the stars far blown 

And the foam of the milky-way ! 

And the drifting worlds caught her flaming light 

And her banner above unrolled, 
As she plowed her way with a tireless might 

Round the cape of the sun's red gold. 

How grandly she swept ! — how her head-lights 
burned ! 

At the sunward dip of her spars. 
With the joy of the outward-bound she turn 

Flag-ship of the fleet of the stars ! 

Speed ever and on, O craft of the skies ! 
Afar through the infinite spheres, 



EVENTIDE. 19 

Past the utmost seas where the world-waves 
rise, 
On thy cru?se of the untold years, 

EVENTIDE. 

The ghostly heat of summer noon is laid, 
The pallid fever of his reign is spent ; 

A world-wide blessing woven of the shade, 
Cool evening lifts the star-folds of her tent. 

A subtle hint of balm is in the air : 

The breath of flowers in dream-enfolded sleep 
Floats like the incense of a lifted prayer, 

While insect murmurs rhythmic measure, keep. 

The valley's dusk in dewy silence lies. 

For labor's song and weary tumult cease ; 

The stars in quiet hold the summer skies, 

And evening wears her perfect crown of peace. 

THREESCORE. 

The white day comes again, dear wife, 

In beauty's flush and glow, 
As first upon our wedded life 

It dawned so long ago : — 
That golden morn whose sweet light lay 

On plighted hearts and hands, 
Far kindling into rosy day 

The yet untrodden lands. 

Though fair the beckoning years before 
To love-lit vision seemed, 



20 ^ SHEAF OF POEMS. 

How well we know their golden store 

Was vaster than we dreamed ; 
For through the vanished summer, flown 

Our footsteps all the while 
Have bloomed with joys which love has grown 

Beneath her patient smile. 

With backward look we pass to-day, 

Two pilgrims further bound, 
Another mile-stone on lifes way 

With autumn roses crowned. 
And viewing all the past again, 

Its hoarded wealth untold, 
We know the years that yet remain 

Hold love's uncounted gold. 

Beyond us rise the height sublime, 

And nearer, hill on hill, 
The rosy smile of morning-time, 

In vision lingers still. 
While speed the swiftly changing scenes 

Across our pilgrim way, 
Still o'er our path a glory leans 

That gladdens every day. 

So tread we on with patient feet 

The winding pathway through. 
While two hearts hold for aye complete. 

The old love always new. 
Though summer-time may lose its crown 

The dry leaves lisp and fall, 
Across the slope we journey down, 

And love is all in all. 



A MORNING SONG, 21 

A MORNING SONG. 

O FAIR and sweet is the summer morn — 
A queen in her beauty crowned — 

A mist-wreath over her shoulders flung 
With pearls and diamonds bound. 

So softly over the hills she came, 

As still as the roses blow, 
The valleys asleep heard not her step, 

But woke at her smile aglow. 

Her presence wore such a queenly grace 
That the shadows gave her room. 

She sweetened the air with dewy breath, 
And kissed the flowers a-bloom. 

So the clover-heads, and the buttercups, 
And the daisies' white-rayed gold, 

With the royal lilies sweet and tall 
Her treasure and blessing hold. 

The meadows swept by her garments' hem 

Are beaded with gems of dew, 
And the maple leaves for joy of her 

Are tremulous through and through. 

O brooding peace of the morning, stay ! 

Nor swift as her presence fly. 
Sing aye, my heart, as the wild birds sing, 

While the sweet morn passes by. 



22 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

POSSESSION". 

On wildwood slopes where April lays 

Her wooing touch so tender, 
To break the sleep of winter days 

And waken starry splendor, 
The Mayflower hides her modest worth 

From gaze of carious seeing. 
But still betrays her blissful birth 

By odorous joy of being. 

Deep in the dusk of tangled dells, 

Else full of gloom and sadness, 
The thrush's song of beauty swells 

In sweet unmeasured gladness : 
No ear may note the tender strain 

The songful heart is giving. 
Still on it flows in sweet refrain — 

The very bliss of living. 

The starriest splendor shuns the day 

Nor wears its crown unbidden, — 
The rarest beauty hides away. 

The sweetest songs are hidden : — 
The poet's brow may wear the bays, 

His name be ever ringing, 
But still above the sweetest praise 

He holds the joy of singing. 

CASTLE AVINDOWS. 

Fkom my spacious castle windows — 
Airy castles of the brain — 

I have looked abroad and listened, 
Heard the bugle's mellow strain. 



CASTLE WINDOWS, 23 

Seen the pngeant's passing splendor 

With its glories manifold, 
Seen the cloud-built towers illumined 

With the dying sunset's gold, 
And the dawn's far-reaching banners 

From their pinnacles unrolled. 

Full before the open casement 

Fairest visions sweep and throng, 
While the castle arches tremble 

With the melody of song. 
Gleams of eastern lands of story. 

Fairy realms of old renown. 
Crumbling w^alls whose faded glory 

Wears the ivy's leafy crown. 
While above the Neckar valley 

Far and wide the ruins frown. 

Tower and bastion rise below me, 

On the mountain slope I stand, 
And the vision waits before me 

Of the glorious Fatherland. 
From the forest wilds of Odin 

Sweeps the river to the plain, 
Where the castled Rhine rolls onward 

To the breakers of the main, 
And the meadow-lands are golden 

With the largess of the rains. 

Where the vineyard slopes are purple 

With the vintage of the year, 
iiinojs the mellow voice of labor 

And the harvest songs of cheer : 
Down the mountains paths I wander 

To the ruins old and brown, 



24 A SKEAF OF POEMS, 

Where the riven towers uplifted 
Watcli above the quaint old town; 

By the storied river dreaming, 
With the castle for its crown. 

Over castle, hill and mountain, 

Still the autumn sunsets burn. 
And the olden days long vanished 

From the dusky past return : 
Still the airy windows kindle 

With a changeful glow and gleam, 
Like the hues of fairy splendor 

From the jewel's prisoned beam ; 
And the vision passes onward 

Like the glory of a dream. 

BEYOND. 

Where stays the year which waits to bring 

Our long and last repose, 
Whose golden gates shall open swing 

For us, but never close ? 

What fair, sweet month of all the year 

Shall pillow on her breast 
Our weariness, and drop her tear 

Above our dreamless rest ? 

When will the day so far and wide 

In dawn's fair beauty bloom. 
Whose flowers will stand for us aside 

And yield a little room ? 

Just where the final mile-stone stands, 
Or where the meadows end. 



OUTWARD BOUND. 25 

Whose fringes touch tlfe unknown lands, 
And with the twilight blend, 

Our blindness cannot see, or know, 

Amid the dim earth-shine, 
Yet Heaven's immortal lilies blow 

But just across the line. 

And sometime on that border land, 

Beyond the last, long mile. 
We'll clasp again the yanished hand 

And greet the olden smile. 



OUTWARD BOUND. 

Out of the misty blue of the West 
We sweep with our sails unfurled, 

Out of the West and into the East, 
Away with the rolling world. 

Across the heaving disc of the sea, 

Enzoned with a ring of mist. 
Our reeling track is white with t'he foam 

And fringed with the amethyst. 

Above the horizon's glowing rim 

Dawn's fiery splendor crawls, 
And the mid-day sun rolls down the steep. 

And into the ocean falls. 

Across the sweei^ of the star-hung blue 

The Zodiac's monsters shine, 
And gloss themselves in the starry wave, 

Then drop in the azure brine. 



26 * -^1 SIIEAF OF POEMS. 

Afar through the gray and ghostly mist — 

The pallid and boding gloom 
Whose fringes are torn by tempest wings 

And the fog-horn's dismal boom — 

Away and away, our foaming track 
Reels ever from strand to strand, 

Till the crags of the Old World lifted high 
With a welcome, give us land ! 



ON THE HEIGHTS. 

Where dizzy ledges cleave the upper blue 

And stunted balsams grow, 
I breathe the freedom of the hills anew 

And pause to look below. 

So far beneath the winding valley lies, 

No sound from thence can come 
To scale the crags uplifted to the skies — 

All life below is dumb. 

Around the space wherein the valley winds. 

As if to guard and bless, 
Throng crowded leagues of ever-murmuring pines, 

A swarthy wilderness. 

Across the meadows drift the shadows fleet, 

From island mists air-blown, 
Whose trailing fringes are beneath my feet 

Upon this mountain throne. 

Beyond the hills, across the wooded land, 
The storm-winged legions go ; 



ALPINE ECHOES 27 

The sunsliine falls around me where I stand 
The thunder rolls below. 

And pausing here upon the heights sublime 

To rest on beds of fern, 
Afar I see from crags of eldest time 

The clouds all golden burn. 

Beneath me moans the tempest's angry pain ; 

While livid lightnings play, 
His stormy passion crumbles into rain. 

And weeps itself away. 

Upon the heights where peace and sunshine sleep, 

And heaven is always blue. 
Dwell thou, O pilgrim, and forever kee 

Life's sunward side in view. 

ALPINE ECHOES. 

Fair valley stream, so glad with mellow song, 
Vnd low, sweet laughter's gurgling melody. 

Whose crystal feet are tripping toward the s 
Thy voice I hear as when the idle throng 
Of golden days in fair procession long 

Hung tranced above thy beauty's dimpled grace, 

And white and cool across the far blue space 
The snowy cones were lifted clear and strong ! 
And far above the tinkling bells I hear 

From snow-fringed j^astures, green with sum- 
mer's crown, 
And mountain songs are ringing sweet and clear 

From lifted slopes of sunshine drifting down. — 
O far-off voices of the vanished days. 
Whose echoes linger and whose sweetness stays ! 



28 ^ SHEAF OF POEMS. 

A WORD FOR SHAKESPEARE. 

When hawthorn hedges, foaming white, 
Were sweet with mimic snowing, 

He first beheld the April light 
And heard the Avon flowing. 

Like other children, then as now, 
The olden summers found him, 

He laughed and cried and knit his brow, 
And ruled the world around him ! 

Still was he wiser than they knew — 
This child, the straw-thatch under, 

Whose song three hundred years ago 
Yet makes the wide world wonder ! 

A child, from croon of cradle hymn 
Above him in his slumbers, — 

A youth, along the Avon's rim 
He caught his tuneful numbers. 

Full poet-souled the shy boy grew 
To manhood's ripe completeness ; 

What Nature taught he quickly knew — 
Her wondrous lore and sweetness. 

The years so fraught with weary toil 
Were gladdened by his singing, 

For well he heard through life's turmoil 
Serenest music ringing : 

As everywhere the world-wide throng 
To-day who know and love him, 



A WOitB FOR SHAKESPEARE. 29 

Throusjh his can henr the lark's sweet sons:. 
That soared and sang above him. 

Where'er he turned his eager feet, 

Her smile o'er him was leaning, 
He felt the heart of Nature beat. 

And learned its hidden meaning. 

What golden wealth from her he brought — 

Her heir by this sweet token — 
A power to clothe the hidden thought 

That else had been unspoken. 

What marvel that the race to-day 

Toward him is fondly turning, 
Who gave its hope a tongue for aye 

To tell its deathless yearning? 

All changing moods of being's state, 

Life's sad or sunny fancies. 
The smile of love, the scowl of hate. 

Affection's sweet romances. 

He holds embalmed in wondrous art — 

A lore beyond the sages — 
The wildest passions of the heart, 

The tenderest love-lit pages. 

Grand builder in the realm of thought ! 

Through his wide-swinging portals, 
Behold the fane his fancy wrought, 

And peopled with immortals ! 

The king of bards he stands revealed, 
By very grace of giving, — 



30 ^ SHEAF OF POEMS. 

"What hidden founts hath he unsealed, 
And poured for all the living ! 

His fame and song ring evermore 
Above the centuries' thunders ; — 

Though dead three hundred years and more, 
Yet still the wide world wonders ! 



ANNIVERSARY. 

Dear wife, behold our wedding day ! 

How swift the years have flown — 
A score of summers ebbed away 

Since you became my own ! 

This glad sweet morn of summer's prime, 
Whose dawn but just appears, 

Fills up and rounds the measured time 
Of twenty wedded years ! 

What fairer dawns of splender rare 

Have set our hills aglow. 
Far grander than the vision fair 

Of twenty years ago ! 

And life yet wears the perfect crown 

That never groweth old ; — 
Love faileth not but ripens down 

With autumn's ruddy gold. 

And now, dear wife, while sunset gleams 

Across our valleys play. 
The choice of boyhood's glowing dreams 

Is manhood's choice to-day ! 



QUE BABY. 31 

OUR BABY. 

Have you seen our baby ? 

Wait a moment — stay, 
Here she is — our treasure, 

Two months old to-day ! 

Have you seen her equal 

Ever ? — anywhere ? 
Note her blue eyes tender, 

And her silken hair ! 

See her soft cheeks dimpled 

By the smiles that play — 
Cheeks like tinted blossoms 

Of the peach in May. 

Lips like berries ripened 

In the summer days, 
This is sober earnest — 

Can I oyer-praise? 

See her fingers clasping, 

See her hands outreach, 
Hear the cooing music 

Of her baby speech. 



With the next sweet summer 
When she comes to words. 

Won't she rival fairly 
All the sinofiuG: birds ? 



o 



When she came she brought us 
Bliss without alloy — 



32 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

Mother's blessed darling, 
Father's perfect joy. 

Fairest petalled blossom 
On life's spreading tree, — 

Little Princess Royal, 
Queen of hearts is she ! 

None-such she is truly. 
Doubt it if you can. 
Could a world of treasure 
Buy our Baby Fan ? 

Have you got a baby ? 

Nay ? — It's very sad ! 
Honestly and truly 

Don't you wish you had ? 

AN AUTUMN IDYL. 

The autumn sunset burning low 
Floods all the silent air, 

The frosted maples wear a glow 
Like saintly nuns at prayer. 

Upon the uplands growing brown 
Flames yet the golden-rod. 

And silently the thistle-down 
Is sowing all the sod. 

The forest robes upon the hills 
The breezes lift and blow, 

Baring the beauty of the rills. 
White-breasted as the snow. 



BUINS. 33 

Across the lands all richly dight 

A royal pageant strays, 
With crimson banners bathed in light, 

And russet gold ablaze. 

With queenly grace the year goes down 

The sunset slopes the while, 
Upon her head October's crown 

And on her face a smile. 



RUINS. 



By the woods and meadow-lands 
Still the leaning ruin stands ; 
Old and mossy, stained and gray, 
Slowly crumbling to decay. 
Rank weeds round the hearth-stone grow, 
Where the red coals used to glow 
In the winters long ago. 
Through rent roof and rifted walls 
Blue sky gleams and sunshine falls, 
Autumn's rain and winter's snow 
And birds of summer come and go : 
Come, and on the rafters brown. 
Under broad eaves sloping down, 
In the braces, on the stays, 
In the chimney's crooked ways 
Build their nests and linger long 
Till the blue eggs turn to song. 
And the gables out of reach 
Are musical with tender speech. 
3 



34 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

II, 

Thus we find it filled with song 
After years of absence long, 
And the notes of many birds 
Seem the echoes of the words 
Childhood's voices sweet and low 
Uttered in the long ago. 
How the vanished past appears 
Through the mist of faded years! 
Musing 'mid these dreamy sounds 
Glimpse we vales whose sacred grounds 
We shall never, soon nor late, 
Tread again, nor pass the gate. 
Though the doors swing open wide 
Only outward footsteps glide : — 
Dreaming only may we stand 
Within the gates of childhood's land. 

III. 

Backward through the golden haze 
Look we on the olden days. 
Fair the sunshine trembled through 
The freshness of the morning dew — 
Morn that broadened all too soon 
Into fervid heats of noon. 
Never bluer skies outspread 
Tent-like over childish head ; — 
Never wild birds sang more sweet — 

Potent charm to stay our feet — 
Wildwood blossoms swinging wide 
Seemed to beckon us aside : 
Song of bird or nod of flower 
Gave us many a truant hour, 



uuiJSfS. 35 

When through shadows sweet and cool 
We took the wood-path way to school. 

IV. 

Many, many years have fled, — 

Some are living, many dead 

Who within the pine's thick shade 

In the golden summers played. 

From the hillside sloping down, 

Where the greenwood waved its crown, 

And the shadows of the pines 

Formed and marched in spectral lines, 

Tramping with their silent feet 

Out through clover blossoms sweet, — 

Waving dusky hands of gloom 

Through the meadow's fringe of bloom, — 

All have vanished, all have flown 

Save where one tree makes its moan 

And the ruin stands alone. 

V. 

When the wide-mouthed chimney high, 

Upward staring at the sky. 

Holds no more the mellow note 

Of nested swallows in its throat, — 

When the memory-haunted wall, 

Roof and rafter lean and fall, 

And the passing years efface 

Every vestige of its place. 

We shall feel with throbs of pain 

Something lost beyond regain. 



36 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

ANOTHER YEAR. 

Another year, and still another year, 

And yet no fruit is found ; 
The bloom has faded and the leaves are sere, 

Why cumbereth it the ground ? 

The dews of heaven distil upon it there — 

Of sun and rain no lack ; 
It takes all bounty from the earth and air 

And renders nothing back. 

No golden fruit — a richly measured meed 
Of praise for bounties strown : — 

A feeble type of our ungrateful greed 
The fig-tree stands alone. 

Another year of sleepless eare may bring 

The long delayed return. 
And birds of praise may in the branches sing, 

And ripe fruits hang and burn. 

Another year, dear Lord, another year 

Spare thou as in the past, — 
The later blooms may hang mid leaves all sere 

Some golden fruit at last. 

CONSIDER THE LILIES. 

Out of the dust the lilies spring, 

Up from the blackest mould. 
Touched by the sunbeam's flaming wing 

They stand in pearl and gold. 

Never a king on his gilded throne 
Arrayed in jewels rare. 



IN CAMP. 37 

With half ihe prhicely glory shone 
The royal lilies wear. 

Out of the dust their beauty gleams 

Only a summer's day, 
Mocking the pride of human dreams 

With royalest array : 

N'or toil, nor spin for robes they wear, — 

Under His hand they grow, 
Beyond all beauty of compare 

And only bloom and blow. 

Why take ye thought : — the Master's word — ^ 

For robes that fade and fall ? 
Alike he cares for flower and bird. 

Are ye not more than all ? 

More than the lilies' royal worth, 

More than her robes of gold. 
The endless years of another birth 

After our dream is told. 

Out of the dust and of the dust, 

Akin to the soulless clod. 
We climb by the rounds of faith and trust 

To the endless life of God ! 



m CAMP. 

A hunter's camp by forest lake 

With many a range around. 
Of fir-fringed slopes and purple peaks, — 

A wild enchanted ground. 



38 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

High over all the twilight heaven, 

Below the waves at rest, 
The green gems of the wooded isles 

Asleep on beauty's breast. 

The blue smoke of the camp-fire curls 
In waved and twisted lines, 

Across the trembling aspen leaves, 
Among the whispering pines. 

Sweet nature's hush is in the air. 

And on the water lies, 
Whose crystal deeps give back the blush 

Of evening's tender skies. 

White mists are floating on the hills ; 

Across the silent air 
Broad arms are spread in blessing forth 

To make the scene more fair. 

Against the blue-walled firmament 

The curved and airy bars 
Of vapor gleam like sabre blades 

With jewelled hilts of stars. 

In ashen white the camp-fire veils 

Its faint and pallid gleams, 
Wliile on the odorous balsam boughs 

We pass to quiet dreams. 

Till touched by midnight's magic spell, 
From starriest dreams we wake, 

To see the soft light on the hills. 
The white mist on the lake 



DECEMBER. 39 

Fold silently pale spectral arms 

Across its jewelled breast — 
The naiad of the waters set 

To guard its starry rest. 

And thus while on the barren hills 

The drifted snows are piled 
By winter gales exultingly, 

With voices fierce and wild, 

The summer camp in wildwood glades, 

The forest's shaded ways, 
Pass in review and charm again 

As in the golden days. 

Hang ever thus, O forest scenes, 

Amid the starry throng 
Of hours that mock the fairest dreams, 

That shame the sweetest song. 



DECEMBER. 

O MONTH of song and wail ! 

O month of mirth and cheer ! 
With voice of storm and gale 

Sing out the waning year. 

Sing to the woodlands bare, 
Sing to the hillsides brown. 

Drop from the misty air 
Thy snowy mantle down. 

Hang where the wood-slope grieves 
For robes of summer lost, 



40 A SHEAF OF POEMS, 

Pearls for the faded leaves, 
And beaded stars of frost. 

O lull with frost and frown 
The streamlets' noisy flow, 

To mellow chime from fairy town, 
Under the drifted snow. 

Weave thou for waiting lands 
Rare robes wdth ermine frills. 

And fold them with thy jeweled hands 
Around the shivering hills. 

Breathe with thy frosty breath. 
And paint on window-pane. 

Mosses and ferns and heath. 
And lilies wet with rain, 

Grasses and leaves and sprays. 
Forests and fanes and spires, 

And mountain peaks ablaze 
With light of opal fires. 

And thus, O month of storms ! 

Give for the flowers that blow, 
Old winter's mythic forms 

Of bloom in frost and snow. 



TO J. E. 

weary friend ! to whom has come at last 
The blissful rest, the calm and perfect peace, 
And full fruition after toils release, — 

1 give thee joy for all the victories past! 



AN ANCESTRAL QBE. 41 

This wreath of song upon thy grave I cast : 
Could thy fond ear but catch the simple strain, 
Then wouldst thou know how through all grief 
and pain 

Love lingers yet, while tears fall thick and fast. 
Through fitful starlight crossed with banded gloom 

To dawn's white splendor have thy feet attained ; — 
The hills whereon immortal lilies bloom 

Are thine, aye, — the goal forever gained ! 

And so we part, till from the star-lit skies 

On us who wait the unclouded dawn shall rise ; 

1881. 



AN ANCESTRAL ODE. 

Why toil in rhyme? Dull, common j^rose 
Could never half my thought disclose ; 
And e'en the stately tread of rhyme 
Perchance may fail the theme sublime. 
Yet Atlas, toiling 'neath his load 
Along the hot and dusty road, 
With brawny shoulders bent and bare 
Beneath his ponderous world of care, 
Miojht smooth his wrinkled brow and smile 
To trade his pack for mine awhile. 

Shall I essay the utmost rim 
Where distant suns burn pale and dim ; 
Or seek the hidden cause to know 
Which makes our burning sunsets glow 
With crimson splendor soft and clear 
Through earth's transfigured atmosphere ? 
Nay, but I leap the mighty chasm 



42 ^ SHEAF OF POEMS. 

Beyond tbe reach of protoplasm, 
And sail, and sail, the shoreless sea 
Of matter's mighty protency ! 
Ah ! theme sublime ! who shall aspire 
To any bolder flight, or higher ? 

Since longing will supply the wing 
And teach the humble bat to sing, 
Then why may we not mount and fly 
As song-birds through the summer sky ? 
How frail the walls which hold us in 
Since we are all one kith and kin 
With earth's wide fauna ! What a dream !- 
Surpassing strange this wondrous theme ! 

How passing sweet to linger here, — 

To trace our growth from sphere to sphere, 

To that far mystic time and age — 

The morning of our pilgrimage, 

As evolution strangely tells. 

When we were mollusks in our shells ! 

Doubt not : the crisp, sweet oyster pie 

Is luscious by a kindred tie ! 

But ages ere the bivalve grew 
What vast development he knew! 
From primal matter's potent strife 
Dead atoms took the cue of life, 
Because they must, and might, and should, 
And could'nt help it if they would ! 
And then the molecules by dozens — 
Our ancient, dear ancestral cousins — 
Swarmed out like bees from summer hive 
And made the universe alive ! — 



AK ANCESTRAL ODE. 43 

So Darwiu says, though some still scout it, 
But Huxley '11 tell you all about it. 

Was it, in sooth, a silly whim 
In hoary aeons old and dim. 
That discontented bivalves yearned 
Till they to wriggling tadpoles turned ? 
Not so ; progressions never fail — 
Each bivalve gained thereby a tail ! 
And wrestling with a dumb desire. 
He still aspired to something higher, 
Till changed again, as we may see, 
At last a leaping frog was he. 
Rejoicing in his liberty! 

And now what hasty strides he made ! 
Development, so long delayed. 
Moved on apace, as well it should. 
From kangaroo to monkeyhood : 
Orang-outang and chimpanzee 
Are in his line of ancestry ; 
Till from progression's mighty span 
Emerged the stately creature — man ! 
All hail, illustrious pedigree ! 
We bow and own our ancestry ! 
What upright forms of graceful shape 
Developed from the grinning ape ! 
What brain and brawn, a priceless boon. 
Transmitted from the sage baboon ! 
Where lives the man whose very spine. 
At thought of his ancestral line. 
Has not been thrilled with filial pride 
Till he for very joy has cried ? 



44 A SHEAF OF POEMS, 

If sucli there be, go mark him well, 
For him no minstrel measures swell " 
From blithsome fen, or reedy pool, 
Where kindred hold their singing-school. 
Their alto, bass and baritone 
No witching spell o'er him have thrown ; 
He hears no song from shore to shore, 
And so he bars and bolts his door, 
Forgetful of the starry shine 
That crowns his long ancestral line ! 



ON A FIR CONE FROM BAYARD 
TAYLOR'S GRAVE. 

TO J. G. W. 

When last the autumn's changeful glory gave 
To field and woodland all its splendor rare, 
While dreamful beauty melted through the air, 

This fragrant cone dropped on the j^oet's grave. 

And now while storms of winter wildly rave, 
I hear again the rhythm sweet and strong 
That trembled through the fir-tree's solemn song 

As in its shade I saw its branches wave. 

And still it sings of weary journeys done. 

Of northern pines and drooping tropic palms. 

Of desert sands and snowy summits won. 

Of mingled storms and sunshine and of calms. 

And welcome home ! — a lullaby that thrills 

The listening silence of his native hills ! 



AN INDIAN SUMMER. 45 

INDIAN SUMMER. 

When spring-time sun and tender rain 

Had set the buds aflame, 
The royal gates swung wide again 

And queenly Summer came. 

Fair maiden queen of all the year — 

God's beauty in the land, 
We greeted her with smile and cheer, 

We clasped her jewelled hand. 

Through quiet haunts and dreamy dells 
We went where wood-birds build, 

In meadow vales, on upland swells, 
Where sweetest songs are trilled. 

In queenly ways of loveliness, 

'Mid all things fair and sweet, 
And fondly did the glad earth press 

Her flower-ensandaled feet. 

Through golden days we wandered wide — 

She led through sun and shade, 
And all the land seemed glorified 

Where'er her footsteps strayed. 

Where wild-birds sansj on wooded heis^hts 

And laughed the mountain rills, 
The beauty of her crowning lights 

Touched all the leaning hills. 

Yet strangely while her praises rang, 
Sweet bride of every clime. 



46 ^ SHEAF OF POFMS. 

Her heart was touched with secret pang- 
The pain of parting time. 

So on the sunward slopes awhile 
She paused and vvaved her hand, 

And going; left her parting smile 
Upon the autumn land. 



AN OLD STORY RETOLD. 

Well sang the bard in verse sublimely true 
That " distance lends enchantment to the view ; " 
He might have added in the self-same tone 
That she had never yet returned the loan ! 
So by this spell through hazy years remote 
She hides the glories of a ragged coat, 
And shows to us through leagues of crystal air, 
Some howling waste, as Eden, sweet and fair ! 

But when she takes some bit of common clay 
AVith spirit rife and full of passion's play, 
And bids us look through purple reaches dim 
To see the glories conjured by her whim 
About this mortal so exalted grown. 
Whose stature now so far exceeds our own, — 
Just wipe your glasses — shade your dazzled eyes— 
The second look may check your first surprise ! 

Reflect a moment : throuorh the endless ransje 
Of years and ages, most things seem to change ; 
While star and sphere are through the spaces 

whirled, 
And throb of earthquake trembles round the world, — 
Tides, seasons, mountains, and the sea that binds 



AN OLD STOBY RETOLD. 47 



Are shifting alvvnys ns the cliangeful winds, 
One thinq; is chanojeless — on this rollinoj ball 
Old human nature holds its own through all 



This fact assured, then keep within your ken 
That boys are only little less than men ; 
That past or present, wliether bond or free 
A boy's a boy — at least he's apt to be. 
This statement true becomes the key of gold 
To this old story which is here retold. 

Great was the man who seemed so wisely sent 

To lead our armies — be our president ! 

Not simply great in manhood he appears, 

But great in boyhood's young and guileless years 

He owned a hatchet, so the story goes — 

You know the legend everybody knows, — 

And how his father had a cherry tree, 

Graceful and tall and beautiful to see. 

One day our youth while busy hacking round 

Fell on this tree, and cut it to the ground ! 

Now when he saw his fatlier coming out 

He hid his hatchet 'neath his roundabout. 

And wlien 'twas asked, w^ho made the tree to fall? 

He didn't know, nor could he guess at all. 

But he surmised some colored youth somewhere 

Had cut it down to get the cherries there ! 

This boy was trying now, as well he might. 

To keejD the hatchet from his father's sight ; 

But while he circled cautiously around 

At last he dropped the weapon on the ground ! 

Ah ! sad indeed ! His was a piteous i^light, 

With all his chances higher than a kite ! 

Here might we pause, for doubtless on his part 



48 ^ SHEAF OF POEMS. 

His father spoke the fullness of his heart; 

Then reaching down he plucked a lithe, long shoot, 

That grew in beauty from a hickory root. 

And touched the youth in such a magic way 

It turned his dark forgetfulness to day ! 

And knowing now who made the tree to fall, 

He spoke the truth and told his father all ! — 

Kind friends take warning — do not reason why, 

But like our hero, never tell a lie ! 



OLD AND NEW. 

While Midnight, with ensandaled feet 

Walked the star-paved upper street, 

Clad in her jewels rich and rare. 

With dust of diamonds in her hair, 

A bent and weary pilgrim old 

Went shivering through the dreary cold, 

With haggard face of pain upturned. 

That through the darkness looked and yearned 

For his lost youth : but when the clang 

Of joy-bells through the arches rang, 

He passed from sight. With radiant frame 

An angel form of beauty came 

And took his place. His eyes were wet 

With tender tears of sweet regret ; 

But, kissed by Midnight's calm content, 

Adown the starry arch he went ; 

And Morn swung wide her gates and smiled 

Upon the New Year undefiled. 



IN SPRINGTIME. 49 

IN SPRINGTIME. 

SpriKg comes above the barren world 

By winter ruled so long, 
And where his snows were lately hurled 

Sits April's life and song. 

Through all the forest branches wide 

She wakes the vital flood — 
The burly chestnut's rugged tide, 

The maple's amber blood. 

She gives her blessing to the buds 

Down all the sylvan ways ; 
And bursting into green, the woods 

Fling out their airy sprays. 

From greening tints on all things laid 

In wayward curve and line. 
The swarthy hemlock takes a shade, 

The needles of the pine. 

The alders drop their golden dust, 

The willows wave and gleam, 
The lichens blotch the rocks with rust, 

The snow-drops bloom and dream. 

Sweet forms of beauty manifold 

Are brought on April's wing : — 
The spice-bush's threaded beads of gold 

On budded branches cling. 

Above the gray rock's hem of moss 
The wind-flower nods and turns ; 
4 



50 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

The vines of goldthread run across, 
The flaming pinxter burns. 

By quiet pool and foaming run 

The silken ferns unfurl, 
And shining laurel drinks the sun 

From tinted cups of pearl. 

Where summer's faded leaves are laid 

To rest in quiet dells, 
The trailing raayflower twines her braid 

And hangs her sweetest bells. 

On sunward slopes that downward reach 

To meadow-lands below, 
The clouds of apple-bloom and peach 

Are drifting like the snow. 

Warm sunshine wooes the springing grain 

To crown the waiting farms, 
And God gives by His sun and rain 

The sheaves for Autumn's arms. 

So Spring-time keeps her league with earth, 
And sweet flowers bloom and nod, — 

From death springs life to fairest birth, 
To keep our faith in God. 



PETER COOPER. 

God's gracious hand in silent tenderness 

But touched the brow that age had wrinkled 

deep. 
And weary care made way for blessed sleep, 



CHILDREN'S DAY. 51 

And peace immortal crowned his faithfulness ! 
No more the years his silvered hair will press : 

His work, well wrought, shall unborn thousands 
cheer, 

Who, weary toiling in the twilight here. 
Shall teach their lips his honored name to bless. 
So shall he live, loved by his fellow-man, — 

In true affection held forever young : 
No shaft is needed for a name so pure. 

His deed and thought were part of God's own 
plan : 
Though brazen fame may give his name no tongue, 

His work shall live, aj^proved, accepted, sure I 



THE CHILDREN'S DAY. 

To-day within these leafy shades 

'Mid graceful columns springing. 
What happy voices stir the glades 

And blend with nature's singing: — 
The glad leaves murmur mellow trills, 

The birds their notes are trying, 
And echoes from the breezy hills 

Are glad in their replying. 

'Tis well to leave the dusty street, 

Its busy cares foregoing, — 
To hear the pulse of nature beat 

And feel her breezes blowing : — 
For always she has songs to cheer, 

The lowliest heart upraising, 
If we but lend to her an ear, 

To hear her reverent praising. 



52 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

God's voice is in the grove we tread, 

We hear its whispered sweetness, — 
His presence as the leaves o'erhead 

Bends o'er our incompleteness : 
And rosy childhood wears once more 

The touch of His caressing. 
As on Judea's hills of yore 

He crowned it with His blessing. 

Since this is childhood's holiday, 

Let every lip be smiling, 
And care and sorrow flee away 

From every heart's beguiling : — 
For ere they reach the wished-for years 

Where lie the golden meadows, 
Perchance will spring the fount of tears 

And fall the woven shadows ! 

We cannot bid the years remain. 

Or stay in all their going, — 
Too brief indeed is childhood's reign, 

Too swift the time is flowing ; 
But we may lend a kindly hand, 

Or lift a gentle warning, 
To make the paths of wonderland 

All glorious as the morning ! 

We all are pilgrims old or young, 

Forever onward faring; — 
Some cheer the way with songful tongue 

And some go on uncaring ;— 
Some far ahead see lights of home. 

Some stray in tangled wildwood, 
While far below the children roam 

The sunny vale of childhood ! 



CRILDEEN'S BAY. 63 

A wondrous valley neath the skies ! — 

We all have known its winding: : — 
How nearer fairy-land it lies 

Than any after finding ! 
A storied realm, where false and fair 

Claim equal faith out-reaching, 
Where wierdest forms that dreams may wear 

Are true as any preaching ! 

Alas ! when once we pass the vale 

There is no backward turning, 
Howe'er the dreams of life may fail, 

Howe'er the heart be yearning : 
But still its garnered wealth we hold 

Though far beyond the portal, 
And more than royal stores of gold, 

Its memories immortal ! 

O pictures ! hanging evermore 

Upon the walls unfading, 
How time re-touches o'er and o'er 

Each tender tint and shading ! 
Fair treasures held in endless tryst ! — 

Alas! in Eden's wiMwood, 
What glory Eve and Adam missed 

Without a gleam of childhood ! 

Of mother's power to soothe and bless. 

Her smile above them leaning. 
Of cradle song and sweet caress 

They never knew the meaning ! 
How much was lost from living then 

With childhood yet unrisen ; — 
No Daniel in the lion's den, 

Nor Joseph in the prison ! 



54: A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

Alas ! they knew no Jacob's dream, 

Low on a stone reclining, 
With golden ladder's lifted gleam 

And angels white and shining ! 
How David slew the giant strong, 

The hosts of God defying, 
Or how he soothed with harj) and song 

Saul's demon yet undying ! 

And yet with childhood's tales untold, 

No sunny gleams returning. 
They lived and loved, grew gray and old, 

And never knew its yearning. 
But fondly yet our memory clings 

To tides still backward flowing, 
While light as from an angel's wing 

Is waved above their going. 

Fair childhood wears a diadem 

Unknown in song or story 
Since One was born at Bethlehem 

Who crowned it with His glory : 
And when He came the angels told 

In song the wondrous stranger, 
And wise men came with gifts of gold 

To worship at a manger ! 

Since in that far Judean land 

He gave His tenderest blessing 
To childhood 'neath his loving hand, 

In warm and sweet caressing ; 
Since by the open gates of Nain 

He changed to joy the weeping, — 
Or woke a tender maid again 

From death's still dreamless sleeping ;- 



ON READING AN OLD POET. 55 

Since Galilean mothers brought 

To him their babes, revealing 
The depths of mother love, and sought 

For them his touch of healing, — 
How fairer far the world has grown 

Through grace of His adorning, 
How far good-will to man has flown 

Since that first Christmas morning! 

So childhood wears a fadeless crown, 

And cloudless o'er it glowing 
The skies of morn are bending down. 

And breath of bloom is blowing ; 
And when our years of wandering flee — 

We gain the golden portal — 
Perchance one joy of Heaven will be 

That childhood is immortal ! 



ON READING AN OLD POET. 

A NIGHT of Storm ! The blinding flakes are blown 

By frost-stung winds that smite the trees and 
moan. 
The leafless branches creak amid the cold. 

While winter's storm-march sweeps the drifted 
wold. 
The casement rattles — on the window pane 

A fairy artist builds Aladdin's fane — 
A wondrous palace crowned with gleaming spires, 

Whose opal windows blaze with diamond fires ! 

Without, the storm's wild tumult and its din, — 
Thy gladsome song makes melody within, 



56 ^ SIIEAF OF POEMS, 

While on the hearth the wood-fire's blaze and glow 
Defies the gale and laughs at drifting snow! 

We own thy charm, and lo ! the caged birds 

Are hushed to hear the music of thy words ; 
And more and more thy woven spell holds sway 

And haunts the night with visions of the day, 
By mellow songs with matchless grace replete 

And love's own rapture throbbing warm and 
sweet. 
To whose rare music swelling full and clear 

The storm drifts by, and lo ! the stars appear! 

TO E. A. B. 

O FKiEND immortal in the summer land ! 

I fain would greet thee as in days of old, 

Whose thronging memories me to-night enfold, 
And know again thy friendly grasp of hand. 
The tidal years touch not thy golden strand, 

Nor steal the strength of manhood's early prime ; 

The shore unshadowed knows no passing time. 
For life immortal hath no shifting sand. 
O, loyal heart, what greetings manifold 

Beyond the borders shall our spirits share? 

When sundering years have parted for awhile ! 
Thy shadow dim within my hand I hold ; 

Nor can I doubt that in the morning air 

Our clasping hands will wake the olden smile. 

OCTOBER. 

At morn the white mist fills 
The valleys rimmed with hills. 
Above the meadows shorn, 



OCTOBER. 57 

And ripeued shocks of corn, — 
Above the quiet streams, 
►Scarce wakened from the dreams 
Of stars they saw in sleep, 
The snowy garments sweep, 
Till sunbeams, fold on fold, 
Roll back the mist in gold, 
To show how glad earth lies 
Beneath October's skies. 

A dreamy golden haze 
Fills up the autumn days. 
Wild asters linger yet 
With ragged briars thick set, 
And o'er the land far blown 
The thistle-down is sown. 
Round old trees moss-enshrined, 
Where bitter-sweet is twined, 
Its coral berries press 
Against the sun-bright dress. 
Like rustic beads and charms 
On beauty's neck and arms. 

The frost-grape's clusters shine 
Alonsj the ramblinsf vine 
Half hid by russet sjirays 
Tangled in lawless ways 
With branches wooed and won 
To lift them to the sun. 

Rare sunsets burning low 
Transfigure in their glow 
To garbs divinely fair. 
The robes the woodlands wear. 



58 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

The chestnut's changing crown 
Is dropping bright leaves down, 
And frosted burs spread wide 
Their bearded globes of pride, 
And let the brown nuts blow 
To waiting hands below. 

The hazels close besid ) 
Are jeweled like a bride, 
And stand aglow with bliss 
Beneath October's kiss. 
The maples change their dress 
Of summer loveliness 
For hues that quickly fade 
Into a richer shade, 
Till satisfied they blaze 
In saintly robes of praise. 

When autumn gales appear, 
Singing the waning year. 
Then all the woodland grieves 
At loss of summer leaves. 
Wind-swept in di-ifting herds. 
Like flocks of golden birds. 
While shadows thinner grow 
On russet slopes below. 

At last her work is done, 
October's race is run. 
The early promise sent 
Has reached accomplishment : 
Her ripened harvests told 
Amid her brown and gold, 
She takes her rest awhile 
Wearing her patient smile, 



A SONG IN THE NIGHT, 59 

While stubble fields lie bare 
In hazy autumn air. 

Mt. McGregor. 

(July 23, 1885.) 

It was morning on the mountains, 

And the faintest flush of day 
Stole in across the tree-tops, 

And kindled far away : 
Then the weary eyes grew brighter 

As the curtains were withdrawn, 
And afar they looked and waited 

For the glory of the dawn. 

But coming in its beauty, 

With crimson and with gold. 
The eyes were all too weary 

Its brightness to behold : 
And when the growing splendor 

Poured its glory over all, 
It was morning on the mountains 

Where the shadows never fall 1 

A SONG m THE NIGHT. 

At midnight wakened from unquiet sleep 

By troubled dreams and pain, 
I heard through darkness measureless and deep. 

The music of the rain. 

Day after day the earth had waited long 
In speechless stress of prayer. 



60 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

And ear intent to catch the welcome song 
Now borne upon the air. 

No dew had cooled the tender grass at morn 

The web the spider spun, 
Of all its wealth of beaded beauty shorn, 

Long rusted in the sun. 

The clouds of promise only brought despair : 

The corn leaves crisply rolled. 
Long since had drained the dew's sweet jewels rare, 

Like pleasure's queen of old. 

My troubled heart was full of doubt and fear 

And trust did almost die ; 
Did God regard, and would he ever here 

Again our feeble cry ? 

But while I slept there came the blessed rain — 

The boon withheld so long — 
In crystal murmurs over hill and plain, 

And filled the air with song ! 

And while the music stirred the forest leaves 

And through the darkness swept. 
The nested birds beneath my dripping eaves 

Chirped out their praise and slept. 

Their notes recalled the old words sweet and true — 

The words the Master said — 
He feedeth them : and trust sprang up anew, 

And doubt forever fied. 



AT LAST. 61 

SUGAR-TIME. 

Old winter wheels his sullen flight 
Above the brown, uncovered hills, 

While budding alders feel the pulse 
And hear the songs of hidden rills. 

Still earth, the sleeping beauty, lies 

Half conscious, dreaming, while she turns. 

And waits the sunshine's princely kiss, 
For which her drowsy being yearns. 

The brown eaves drop their crystal rain 

In songful murmurs till the night 
Hangs low a fringe of icy spears 

Inlaid with stars and barbed with light. 

Now all the woodlands feel the spell 

Of waning dark and climbing sun, 
And fragrant birch and whispering pine 

Are thrilled with quickened pulses won. 

The maples dream of autumn's gold 

Transmuted under wmter snows, 
Till all their wealth of amber blood 

In honeyed sweetness overflows. 



AT LAST. 

As drifting shadows leave no sign 

Each rounded year, 
How many pass the border line, 

And disappear ! 



62 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

For each is set a certain bound — 

A course to run ; 
And when the utmost goal is found, 

All work is done. 

Somewhere the shadow cuts the light 

Across each way, 
And there the starry, solemn night 

Will close the day. 

How far away the hilltops rise 

Where Jl7iis stands, 
Where dreamless sleep will close our eyes. 

And fold our hands, 

It matters not ; — or near, or far, 

Alike are they : 
The hand that guides the sweeping star 

Will lead the way. 

What though we glimpse through misty air 

Some empty nest, — 
No atom drifts beyond His care, — 

His time is best. 

As shadows sweep the summer hills 

And vanish then. 
Each life some rounded purpose fills, — 

Threescore, or ten. 

And when our work has grown complete, 

Our triumph won, 
We shall abide where rest is sweet, 

When work is done. 



BIRTHDAY. 63 

CHIPPEWANOXETTO. 

A SCANTY pasture slope of brown 

Where stunted bushes grow, 
A ragged coast-line beaten down 

By storm and tidal flow ; 

A fisher's hut, a boat upturned, 

A pile of driftwood near. 
And ashen heaps where fires have burned 

To make the noonday cheer ; 

And southward, stretching like a hand, 

When tides have seaward run, 
A slender bar of gray wet sand 

Is bleaching in the sun. 

All dreamily they come and go, 

The white sails drifting by — 
They fleck the azure sea below 

The broader sweep of sky. 

With seaward tides they sail away 

And vanish out of sight, 
Beyond the wedge that cleaves the bay, 

And lifts its warning light. 

So hangs this picture on my wall, 

A memory of the sea. 
While old-time voices seem to call 

The summers back to me. 

BIRTHDAY. 

A GLOOMY day of winter rain ; 

The branches creak, the winds are sad. 
The swift drops beat the sodden leaves. 



64 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

And still the old elm moans and grieves. 
But 'tis your birthday once again 
And so my heart is glad. 

Dear wife, how brims our cup of joy ! 

Your trusting hand in mine I hold : 
For while the fleet years spin and run 

Through all the courses of the sun, 
To us they bring no base alloy, 

But love's unminted gold ! 

Far queenlier than a jeweled crown 

Your coronet of silvered hair. 
And more and more your love-lit eyes 

Illume for me the darkest skies — 
Sweet stars whose clear light beaming down, 

Makes all the waste world fair. 

Pass on, O years, with swifter flow ! 

We build no more for nesting fears ; 
But each will find us richer grown 

In all things love has made our own, 
And far beyond the after-glow 

Still wait the eternal years ! 



NATURE'S PLAN. 

First the tender leaflet ; 

After that appear 
The bud and bloom of promise. 

And the ripened ear. 

Thus the folded life-germ 
In the acorn found. 



TO HENDBY W, LONGFELLOW. 65 

Makes the mighty monarch 
Of the forest ground : 

And the way-side beauty, 
Growing all the while, 
Glads the dusty highway 
With its patient smile. 

So the lands are golden 

Neath the sun and rain, 
With the yellow billows 

Of the ripened grain. — 

What are we the better 

While the seasons flow, 
And the years are passing, 

If we do not grow ? — 

Grow in all the beauty 

Of the Master's grace 
Unto heavenly fruitage 

In our humble place ? 



TO HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 

SONGFUL bard ! whose fame the nations hold 
Enshrined for aye, thy latest leaves of gold 

1 turn to-night, and ease an hour of pain 
With rarest fancies of the poet's brain. 

So passing sweet thy witching spell is wrought 
I fain would bless thee for thy pictured thought : 
And so I breathe a warm heart's-uttered prayer 
For heaven's own blessing on thy snow-white hair,- 
That when thy years are rounded full and free 



66 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

The gates of pearl may inward swing for thee. — 
Now could some angel breathe to waiting sense, 
The boon I crave hath wrought tliee no offence, 
What rarer joy would lend its presence sweet 
To cheat all pain and make the hour complete. 

ON PILGRIMAGE. 

The land is fair my footsteps journey through — 
A land of promise filled with corn and wine. 

Through shaded ways my winding pathway turns 
In sweet green pastures by the rills of peace, 
Or climbs the slopes where broadening vision sweep 
The travelled way to sunrise-smitten hills. 
And heights untrod that beckon farther on. 

They come and go, the blessed days of peace : 
No cloud glooms down but sunshine trembles through 
And doubt stays not where patient faith looks up 
And takes the good each sweet day holds in store 

So on, and on, toward the sunset land 
His strong arm leads, and clears the tangled way. 
While from His hand unstinted bounty falls, 
And undawned splendor brightens far beyond. 

AT CEDARCROFT. 

With songful heart so still at last 

And brimmed with rest for aye, 
He cannot know the shadow cast 

Upon his hills to-day ! 



AT CEDARCEOFT. 67 

So dear, so dear to all the land — 

They loved him young and old, 
The generous heart and friendly hand. 

The man of royal mould. 

How many homes for him are lone, 

How many eyes are dim, 
While winds of winter wail and moan 

A solemn dirge for him. 

Sad voices oft his name repeat 

And call for him in vain, 
They watch and wait the weary feet 

That never come again. 

And one who loves his memory well, 

Looks back through misty tears 
Beyond the shadow's woven spell 

Upon the vanished years ! 

The Kennett hills were robed in green 

And glad with songs of morn, 
The valleys wore the meadow's sheen 

And waved with wheat and corn. * 

The hedgerows made the waysides fair 

Through tangled sun and shade. 
Where through the sweet June haunted air 

A dusty pilgrim strayed. 

What songs made glad the summer ways 

Of bird and leaf and breeze. 
Till Cedarcroft to longing gaze 

Rose 'mid her ancient trees. 



68 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

The open gate and shadowed way, 

The vine-encumbered wall, 
The spacious lawn of bloom and spray, 

With sunset over all ! 

The kindly words of welcome said. 

The friendly grasp of hand. 
They still live on though years have sped 

Since then across the land ! 

A storm has swept his leafless wood. 
And bowed the monarch forms 

Of burly chestnuts which have stood 
A thousand winter storms ! 

Alas ! no more the singing birds ! 

The branches wildly toss. 
And one he cheered with kindly words 

Is dumb with sense of loss. 



TO MY MOTHER ON HER BIRTHDAY, 

The brown earth wakens from her dream 

With drowsy pulses low. 
While April turns to catch the gleam 

That makes her being glow. 

Sunward her quick tides flush and rise 

In raptures warm and sweet, 
While mayflowers spring in mute surprise 

Beneath her sandaled feet. 

And while she weaves with cunning hand 
The woodland's airy frills, — 



TO MY MOTHEB ON HER BIRTHDAY. 69 

A deepening flush across the land, — 
The green robe of the hills, 

Northward she calls her singing throng, 

Blue bird and thrush and wren, 
To greet with glad and mellow song 

Thy three-score years and ten ! 

And while she lifts her buds half-blown 

To deck thy natal day, 
All tenderly another stone 

She sets beside thy way. 

On what far slope of tender green 

The first its shadow cast ! 
And all thy pathway lies between 

The earliest and the last ! 

A changeful way by vale and hill 

Thy weary feet have run ; — 
By winding valleys dark and chill, 

By broad slopes glad with sun ! 

We need not trace each mile to-day 

The journey's hopes and fears — 
The bloom and blight beside the way, 

The joys, the smiles, the tears. 

Enough that while each glance we steal 

The shadows flit and fade, 
And all the memory lights reveal 

Far more of light than shade ! 

To-day, with all the hill-slope fair. 
Where runs thy pathway down. 



70 A SHEAF OF FOEMS. 

We press upon thy silvered hair 
Affection's golden crown. 

Be Heaven's broad wealth of blessing thine- 

Fresh manna strew thy way, 
For only can some gift divine 

The raother-love repay : 

And while the dusky shadows grow 

May sunset still unfold 
Across thy way the kindly glow 

From wide-swung gates of gold. 

So shall the golden evening-time 

Fairer than morning be, — 
Some sweet flush wear of that glad clime 

Where welcome waits for thee. 

For while thy natal day we greet, 
What vanished forms appear! — 

What long-hushed voices low and sweet 
Fall on thy listening ear ! 

Perchance where on the hills they stand 

Just veiled from sight away, 
Thy birthday on the borderland 

They keep with us to-day ! 



OXLY FOUR. 

O ROSY light of the summer dawn ! 

Sweet flush of the kindling skies, 
Steal softly over the dewy lawn, 

And touch my darling's eyes. 



JUNE. 71 

On the crimson lip and fringed lid, 

One kiss of thy golden beams 
Will open the blue eyes softly hid, 

And call her back from dreams. 

And tell her then why the bird-songs sweet 

Ring out so mellow and clear — 
Such music as only birds repeat. 

And only birthdays hear. 

And how the summers which she has known 

By blossoms of pearl and gold, 
Have passed in beauty and quickly flown 

To make her four years old. 

Then whisper above my darling's head 
What the tenderest love might say — 

What blessings and prayers for her are said 
Who is only four to-day. 

For the years to come, O write it down — 
The yearning love and the prayer ; 

There never can be a richer crown 
For any child to wear. 



JUNE. 

From tropic lands afar 

She comes with queenly grace, 
Serene as any star 

In all the worlds of space ; 
And in her dreamy eyes 

She bears the blue of summer skies. 



72 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

Her shining brows are crowned 
With roses sweet and rare, 

While half-blown buds are bound 
Araid her waving hair ; 

And all her beauty's hue 

Is only sunshine staining through. 

Her gauzy robes conceal 

In vain her beauty where 
Her charms they half reveal ; 

Her sun-brown arms are bare, 
And in her jewelled hands 

She holds rare gifts for many lands. 

Her coming all things know ; 

Across the emerald grass 
The tiniest flowers that blow 

Look out to see her pass, 
While from her sweet face blown 

They catch a glory for their own. 

She gives all beauty rare 

Through ages manifold, 
Nor ever grows less fair 

Her being's perfect gold ; — 
All in her matchless truth 

She keeps the peerless grace of youth. 

Now fairy-like her tread 

Is on the slopes of green, 
Where Summer lifts his head 

Her damasked robes are seen, 
And evermore his bride. 

She walks in beauty by his side. 



IN WAR TIME. 73 

IN WAR TIME. 

(1864.) 

Bend low through all the Northern land, 

Wild organ forests bend ! 
Let ocean's voice frona strand to strand 

With all your praises blend ! 

Winds, sweep in might November's skies — 
Her leafless woods and sprays, • 

Wake all your grandest harmonies, 
And roll them out in praise ! 

Wild streams and rills and waterfalls ! 

Sing while you foam and flow, 
Glad praises through your crystal halls 

From lips of pearl and snow ! 

Leap, praises, on the buglers breath. 

From rifle-pits and caves ; 
Leap from the cannon's lips of death — 

Ring over nameless graves ! 

Gleam, sabres, in the growing light — 
Gleam while the trumpet brays, 

Wake, drum-beat, through the waning night 
A nation's song of praise ! 

Roll out the anthem, — let it swell : 
God reigns ! — the wrong shall cease ; 

Proclaim it, shot, and screaming shell. 
Through broader curves of peace ! 

All praise to Him ! — the ruddy gleams 
Of morning gild the crimson bars 



74 A SHEAF OF POFMS. 

Above our picket's sleepless dreams — 
Our country's flag of stars ! 



TO G. G. B. 

To-night, O friend, I greet the stars again, 
Whose kindly light o'er us so long ago, 
Kept patient watch above the hills of snow. 
Till flush of morning bade their glory wane ! 
The self-same stars ! — and now my feet would fain 
Reclimb the pass, as on that storm-shut day, 
When night and tempest barred the mountain 
way- 
Save when the cloud-flash lit the spears of rain — 
To see once more above the Alpine range 
How fair they burned, the storm's wild fury spent, 
Flooding the white hills with a beauty strange — 

The ghostly pillars of the firmament ! 
And with what rapture, their sweet gaze withdrawn, 
Mont Blanc's white glory took the kiss of dawn ! 

LAKE ALBAIsrO. 

Fair Alban lake ! enzoned with lava gray — 
The red volcano's glowing rim of yore. 
From noon-day rest along thy haunted shore. 

We turn to watch thy merry waves at play 

Through shade and sunshine of the waning day. 
A w^inding pathway led our feet to thee 
Along the hillsides, while the distant sea, 

Plain, city, mount, and all before us lay. 

The palace walls that crowned thy peaceful shore 



AN ALPINE LAKE. 75 

When Caesar's city was a thing unborn, 
Have crumbled all I — Time leaves a trace no more 

Of all the glory of that faded morn ! 
So fades earth's glory, but the Roman plain, 
The sea, the mountains, and thy smile remain ! 

AN ALPINE LAKE. 

From deep unfailing founts that play 

Through sunless rifts below, 
Upward the crystal currents stray, — 

The singing waters flow. 

Till deep within the blue-walled rim 

Of mountains, azure crowned, 
The goblin's granite bowl they brim, 

And here the lake is found. 

Alone upon the mountains wild 

It wears its sweetest charms, 
And mother Nature owns her child, 

And bears it in her arms ! 

Fair mirror of the summer heaven 

That bends above its breast. 
Or scowling storm of passion driven, 

Across its peace and rest. 

The gray old crags with beauty glow 

From its entrancing face. 
And distant cones of gleaming snow 

Are grander for its grace. 

As fair it smiles as when with blue 
Broad arch above it drawn, 



76 ^ SHEAF OF POEMS. 

Its virgin freshness woke and knew 
The kisses of the dawn. 

No wrinkled trace of age it bears, 

No shadow of decay, 
With lilies on its breast it wears 

Its primal youth for aye. 

A crystal dream of rest it lies 

By passion's breath unriven, 
It holds the brightness of the skies — 

The smile of earth and heaven. 

Rare beauty of the lonely wild ! 

Who on these heights shall stray, 
May leave his care where thou hast smiled, 

And bear thy peace away ! 

m THE HAMMOCK. 

In the mottled shade of the maple trees, 

Where robin builds and sings, 
And the cool leaves shake in the idle breeze 

The children's hammock swings : 
Breathe softly, O song of the summer air, 

Bend tenderly down, O sky. 
Nor suffer a cloud to darken where 

Three wee, brown maidens lie ! 

Aloft where the dusk of the twilight dwells, 
The red-breast's hammock swings. 

Where the delicate tint of sea-green shells 
Has given place to Avings 

Come, dreamy and sweet to their noonday rest 
The softest airs that blow, — 



ON A FOSSIL SHELL, 11 

To the birds asleep in the robin's nest, 
And brownies asleep below ! 

ON A FOSSIL SHELL. 

Thou ancient raollusk from the oozy deep 

Of vast Silurian seas, 
I marvel much at thy untroubled sleep 

On such a bed of ease ! ' 

What mystic ages have above thee flown ! 

Nor is thy slumber past ! 
Thy plastic couch to bed of sandstone grown 

Still holds thee folded fast ! 

Since thou so long hast suffered heat and chill, 

The biting frost and rain, 
Do not thy stony joints with ague thrill, 

Or sharp rheumatic pain ? 

What storm and earthquake have about thee 
whirled ! — 

How changed the seas their place I — 
O sleep no more, but wake and tell the world 

About thy times and race ! 

Ah ! could we know the record of thy reign, 

And all which it befell ! 
Perchance the heart to-day that beats in pain 

Beat in that age as well ! 

Thy shell no doubt was rifled ages since 

By some relentless rogue ! — 
Some kin of ours, perchaice a m mkey prince 

Were clam-bakes then in voc^ue? 



78 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

Or dklst thou slake some saurian monsters' 
greed 

In twilights old and gray ? — 
Thy blameless self some hungry maw to feed, 

Which cast the shell away ? 

Are not our bivalves still allied to thee 

By long ancestral line ? 
And haunt they not, as thou, the shallow sea, 

And sip its luscious wine ? 

Thou speakest not : no answer can we see 

Thy wrinkled visage make. 
But still we clasp thy later progeny 

And love them for thy sake ! 

THE FIRST DECADE. 



By the swift years one by one 
All the web of life is spun. 
Summers come and summers go, 
Winters follow with their snow; 
Gloom of storm and blue of sky 
Mark the seasons passing by ; 
Song of bird and sunny gleam 
Make the long days shorter seem ; 
Blended sunshine, sport and play, 
Chase the winged hours away. 
Till thy rounded years have made 
Life's eventful first decade ! 



THE FIRST DECADE. 79 

II. 

So the summers passing fair 
Over childhood free from care, 
Leadinsc vales of dreamland throusrh — 
Fairy valleys wet with dew, 
Full of sweet enchantment grand, 
Making life a wonderland, — 
These have vanished while thy feet 
Treading roses, rare and sweet. 
All unconsciously have run 
Through the shadow and the sun, 
Till the changing seasons say 
Thou art ten years old to-day ! 

III. 

Here upon the border line 
What a legacy is thine ! 
Better far than treasured wealth 
Dew of youth and rosy health : 
Eyes to see the beauty spread 
All around and overhead. 
Ears to hear the music sung 
Not alone by lip and tongue. 
Heart to feel and mind to know 
How His bounties overflow, 
Richer far than fable old. 
Better than the touch of gold ! 

IV. 

Therefore let the golden days 
Touch thy lips with grateful praise. 
Wreath thy brow with patient smile, 



80 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

Keep thy tender heart from guile : 
So may all the graces shine 
In those dreamful eyes of thine ; 
Faith look up with vision clear 
Far beyond the utmost sphere ; 
Hope with soaring pinion strong 
Lift thee on the wings of song, 
While the swift years drift away 
Under Love's benignant sway. 

V. 

All the years, which lie before 
Wait to bless thee with their store ; 
Wealth of treasure, riches rare, 
These may be thy portion fair. 
Gladly face each rising sun 
With the peace of duty done : 
Let each sunset's fading glow 
Note how love's sweet roses grow, 
With divinest fragrance rife. 
Sweetening all the toils of life : 
So at last shall rest be sweet 
When the last decade's complete ! 

IN THE SOUDAN. 

Gordon ! a name to thrill 
The heart of the valiant still. 
Noble and true and tender, 
In the dust of Egypt's splendor, 
Marred by hostile spears, 
Mourned by a nation's tears, 
The great commander lies 
Under the desert skies. 



IN THE SOUDAN. 81 

A soldier whose fame has flown 
Where'er the winds have blown. 
How shall we tell the story 
Rehearsing his deeds of glory ? 
How fair white honor crowned him, 
And all the graces found him ? 

Though dead by the slumberous stream, 
That winds through Egypt's dream, 
Where the tropic palms will wave 
Forever above his grave, 
The winds of the desert moan 
For the valiant spirit flown. 
And never his fame can be hid 
In the land of the pyramid. 

What deeds of valor done 
'Neath the tropic's burning sun ! 
The march of weary feet 
Through the desert's blinding heat. 
The siege at last and the doom 
By the walls of far Khartoum — 
The pride of the stream which flows 
From Kenia's lifted snows. 
Watched ever by palm and star 
From the crags of Ankobar. 

O city he held so long 

With a few brave hearts and strong, 

Where he swept with gracious sway 

Oppression and wrong away, 

Betrayed by the foe and lost 

At such a perilous cost ! 



82 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

So perished three hundred men 
Of old in a mountain glen ! 
All marred by hostile spears 
And mourned by a nation's tears, 
The dead commander lies 
Under Egypt's haunted skies I 

ORION. 

My room is darkened : through the window bars 
Orion's light in unspent beauty burns, 
As mailed in might he toils above nor turns 

To note the calm procession of the stars : 

With lofty purpose crowned and grim with scars, 
The war club in his brawny hand he bears, 
The slaughtered lion's shaggy skin he wears — 

Type of the passion which the white soul mars. 

And still he smites in his heroic wrath 

The tossing horns that hedge his upward way, 

Till every form of evil in his path 

Bows low, at last, to his unchallenged sway. 

And from the stars a clear voice rings, " Be strong! 

Thou too shalt conquer in the strife with wrong! " 

PONTE ST. ANGELO. 

Beneath the stars that watch the Tiber's flow, 
Slow winding through the glory of a dream — 
The hush of midnight on the haunted stream — 

I pace the ancient bridge, St. Angelo ! 

The years in sooth have stained its marble snow 
And dimmed the beauty of its early prime, 
Yet still it hears the passing centuries chimes, 



ROUND LAKE. 83 

Its strength unmarred as in the mornings glow ! — 
O Roman splendor throned upon the hills ! 

O dream of empire over every clime ! 
How burns the heart thy classic story thrills, 

How pale thy glories in the lapse of time ! 
Thy kings are dust ; thy royal pageants flee ; 
St. Angelo remains and Tiber seeks the sea ! 

ROUND LAKE. 

Long ages since when earth was new, 

One glad and golden morn, 
Beneath the bending arch of blue 

The forest lake was born. 

Earth cradled it among her hills, 
The clouds gave blessing sweet, 

And green slopes sent the laughing rills 
To bathe its crystal feet. 

What beauty bent above its dreams 

While ages rolled away ! 
By night the stars with tender gleams 

The golden sun by day. 

The rosy flush of kindling dawn, 

The brighter glow of even, 
The clouds across the azure drawn 

The sunset fires of heaven. 

Alone amid the wilderness 

Its perfect grace it wore, 
And kept its beauty none the less 

Of pictured sky and shore. 



84 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

Unseen, nntil the savage strayed 
Unhindered through the wild, 

Round Lake, enzoned with forest shade, 
Looked up to heaven and smiled. 

Here paused the Indian by its side 
When shades of evening fell. 

And hither came his dusky bride 
To braid her tresses well. 

And here she found what nature gave 

For her adornment fair — 
The water-lilies from the wave 

To dress her raven hair. 

The red man here in speechless mood, 
Adored with bended form. 

The spirit of the pathless wood, 
Of sunshines and of storm. — 

Swift years of changing beauty throng, 

And fairest years unclose 
The wilderness alive with song. 

And blossomed as the rose. 

For Art has laid her soft caress 
On Nature's wayward child. 

And won by force of tenderness 
The rude and rugged wild. 

Beside the lake's unruffled peace 
Green walled with hills around. 

Are groves whose shadows bring release 
From Care's enchanted ground. 



BOUND LAKE. 85 

The broad encampment's winding streets 

Mid haunt of breeze and bird, 
Cool shaded parks and dusk retreats 

With songs of fountains heard. 

The gleam of white tents in the shade, 

By sunshine mottled fair, 
And under dark green branches swayed 

The cottage homes of prayer. 

Where erst the Indian's stealthy feet 
Roamed through the forest ways, 

God's greenwood temple stands complete, 
And sounding with his praise, 

Through all its airy arches hung 

Leaf-fretted 'neath the blue, 
What melodies of heaven are rung, 

What music trembles through ! 

The songs of pilgrim worshippers 

In blended triumph rolled, 
The forest's-anthem as it stirs 

Its branches mossed with gold. 

The voice of prayer and praises given, 

The Master's echoed words, 
Down ringing from the rest of heaven, 

And gladdest songs of birds. 

Since first he built the spacious arch 

Of blue above the land, 
And stars and suns began their march 

To music sweet and grand. 



86 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

No marble fane of praise and prayer, 

In vast cathedral dim 
With vaulted aisles has seemed more fair 

Than forest grove to Him. 

As in the olden years again 
In shadowy glade and glen, 

He whom the heavens cannot contain 
Vouchsafes to dwell with men. 

And though unseen, above we know 

The ladder's starry rounds, 
On which His angels come and go 

Above the tented grounds. 

And this is Bethel whose green walls 

Ascending praises fill. 
Where healing flows and manna falls 

And God abideth still. 

THANKSGIVING. 

(1866) 

Put off, O earth, thy faded dress, 

Put on thy garb of beauty. 
And in thy robes of righteousness 

Stand forth arrayed for duty. 

Hush every note of hate and wrong — 
Each bitter wail of sadness ; 

Let all thy voices swell one song 
Of love and praise and gladness. 

Wild winter storms that sift your snows 
Above the withered daisies, 



KEATS' GRAVE. 87 

Wake all your strength from its repose 
And storm the heavens with praises. 

O Land, bow lowly in the dust 

The while ye lift your voices, — 
God has but smitten where he must, 

And Liberty rejoices. 

Each peaceful grave where valor sleeps 

In loyal rest unbroken, 
Shall be to every eye that weeps 

Our sins' perpetual token. 

Praise Him ye vales of fair renown 
Whose wrath your slopes has rifted, 

Praise Him ye hills above whose crown 
The battle smoke has drifted. 

Praise Him ye men of loyal might — 
Your gleaming eyes grow brighter. 

Through God your arm has kept the right ; — 
The world is growing lighter ! 

Praise Him, O man, that in thy soul 

Lacked faith for right endeavor — 
God reigneth while the seasons roll. 

And He shall reiorn forever ! 



'O* 



KEATS' GRAVE. 

Thy leaf is withered but thy sweetness stays 

Dear Pansy, grown where frown the ancient 

walls 
Above his grave, and gloom of cypress falls 



SS A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

Across the sunshine of the Roman days : 
Plucked long ago, I hold thee still in praise 

Of him whose song full soon to silence grew — 

Whose glorious morning faded with the dew 
Yet lives immortal in his mellow lays ! 
Not writ in water, nay, the swift years bring 

But added lustre to his shining name : — 
Forever young, untouched by passing wing, 

His broken threads of song are dear to fame ! 
Green is his grave from tears of love untold. 
While English daisies star the grass with gold ! 

TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

A CimiSTMAS greeting tangled in a rhyme 
I give for sunshine on the clouded years — 
For wholesome laughter brewing tender tears, 

For words of cheer that gladden manhood's prime! 

O world-wide Singer ! deem it not a crime. 

Since thy sweet songs have made so many glad. 
If one should sing not in the song-robes clad. 

And utter praise ill put and out of time. — 

Sweet peace be thine upon this Christmas-day 
To lengthen out for thee life's lessening span, 
To quicken good and laugh the bad away. 

With merry heart that doeth good to man ! 
God bless thee now, and if I do thee wrong 
Yet love I none the less the Sincrer and his sonor. 



o* 



RAVENSWOOD. 

O CLASSIC shades of Ravenswood, 
Thy memory holds them fast ; — 



BAVENSWOOD, 89 

Enfold them now, one brotherhood, 
The children of the past ! 

To-day the years anew will blow— 

The coast of life will loom, 
And olden times stand all aglow 

In memory's light and bloom. 

Wave all thy shadows cool and sweet 

To lure the feet that roam, 
While words of kindly welcome greet 

The wanderer's coming home. 

O tender smile of June bend low 

From cloudless deeps of air — 
Breathe softly summer winds, and blow 

Thy welcome everywhere. 

They come from far— they hear the call 

Borne out upon the breeze — 
From far and near they gather all 

Kound Alma Mater's knees. 

Not now as in the days of old, 
When with their bashful tread. 

They came at first through heat and cold 
Where homesick tears were shed, 

But gladly now do they appear— 

The old-time girls and boys ; 
They come and bring their children here,— 

The precious household joys ! 

Ah ! how the busy years have run 
Their swift and silent way, — 



90 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

'Tis noon and past, by many a sun, 
For some are turning gray ! 

God bless you friends and comrades true ! 

His bounty on you fall, 
While faded dreams of life anew 

Come sweet and fresh to all. 

And well may those whom fate denies 

To join the welcome band, 
Look forth to-day from misty eyes. 

And clasp each friendly hand ! 

Ah yes, for where the coast is fair 
And fresh with foam and spray, 

And white sails gleam in summer air 
Upon the broad blue bay, 

Two loyal hearts who treasure well 
Life's visions as they should, 

Greet olden friends to-day and dwell 
On scenes of Ravenswood ! 

They muse on all the vanished years, 
Rich memories held in store. 

And while the shifting past appears 
They count the pictures o'er. 

Ah, how in memory's light they blend 

Each faded tint and line. 
With smile of each remembered friend 

Inwrought in the design. 

Again they send you words of cheer 
From far New England's strand : — 



MY INHERITANCE. 91 

To all in memory held so dear 
They reach the clasping hand. 

And well they know how on the green 

Where many fondly stray, 
A presence felt, but all unseen, 

Walks in your midst to-day ! 

The suns of many years have set — 
We've journeyed many a mile. 

And still we hold, nor can forget 
Her old remembered smile ! 

And others swell unseen the throng, 

Or linger fondly near — 
To old familiar words of song 

They lend a willing ear. 

We may not clasp the viewless hand, 

Nor bid them speak, or stay, 
But still unbroken is the band, 

Nor they are near to to-day ! 

They linger still,— they are not dead ; 

And when the years are passed, 
In grand reunion just ahead, 

We all shall meet at last ! 



MY INHERITANCE. 

All meanly as one lowly born, 
Though noble blood was mine, 

I took the ways of doubt and scorn 
Heir of a royal line ! 



92 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

And forth in far unfriendly lands 

My wayward feet did roam, 
Through desert wastes and burning sands 

Afar from peace and home. 

Above me spread no palm-wide wings 

Across the blinding way ; — 
No shade of rocks, no cooling springs 

To cheer my lonely way. 

My garb was utter wretchedness 
That wrapped me round and round, 

And only want and weariness 
In all the land was found. 

If seeming rest remote and far 

Did lure as something fair, 
At last it fled, a mocking star, 

Through hot, illusive air. 

And hope each passing year grew less, 
The desert seemed more wide. 

And all its joys were emptiness — 
Its dreans unsatisfied. 

So broadly stretched the weary waste 

Unfanned by angel wing, 
Till one day came to me in haste 

A message from the king ! 

What gladsome news to one so vile ! 

How fled my doubt and care ! 
The king had loved me all the while 

And made me now his heir ! 



CHBISTMAS. 93 

The title-deed to wealth untold, 

With royal seal and sign, 
My eager hands now grasp and hold — 

Its treasures all are mine ! 

I pause not here to count them o'er, 
My wealth transcends all thought, 

Though grasping ever more and more. 
The wealth that Love hath wrought ! 

No more I tread the desert sand 
Nor look through blinding tears, — 

Co-heir of heaven and earth I stand, 
And the eternal years ! 



CHRISTMAS. 

Far from Eastern lands and climes, 

First to hear the angel chimes 

From the walls of sapphire flung. 

From the towers of jasper rung, — 

From the hills where listening long 

Shepherds caught the wondrous song 

"Peace on earth," — the Christ is born, — 

" Good will to men : " — from thence the morn 

That smote the dusky slopes with praise. 

Dawns now as in the olden days. 

O welcome day, O welcome morn — 
Good will to men, for Christ is born ! 
From the steeples high in air 
Ring, O bells, ring everywhere, 
Till the music throbs and thrills 
Through the valleys, o'er the hills ; — 



94 ^ SHEAF OF POEMS. 

On the woodlands bare and brown, 
The crowded mart, the busy town, 
Ring the joyous welcome down ! 

Come thou morn of song and mirth, 
Make glad tlie white-robed, waiting earth. 
Spread all thy treasures far and near, 
Make all hearts warm, dry every tear. 
Bring thou afresh to every thought 
The living words divinely taught, 
The deeds of love the Master wrought. 
Let that glad song the angels sung 
With trembling harp and glowing tongue, 
Find answer in the self-same words, 
That woke of old the golden chords. 
And sweetly from the shining wall 
Came down to earth — " Good will to all. " 

We hail thy dawn ! — bring cheer to men 
And warm the old year's heart again. 
With snowy locks December stands 
Mid sleet and storm ; — his wasted hands 
A frosty scepter grasp and hold, — 
His frame is bent, his limbs are old, — 
His bearded lips are iced and pale, 
He shivers in the winter gale. 
Come then, O day of warm heart-cheer, 
Make glad the waste and waning year. 
While old December shivering goes 
To rest beneath the drifted snows ! 



AT DAWN. 95 

IN PEACE. 

Across the dewy hills of dawn 

The bugle call is blown ; 
Why leap the echoes through the morn 

When clouds of war have flown ? 

A sweeter strain than rang of old 

'Mid war's discordant bray, 
It calls from mellow throat of gold 

In camps of peace to-day ; 

Broad fields where rest in wave-like flow, 

O'er-run by summer's sheen, 
With foamy spray of bud and blow, 

The silent tents of green. 

Through crowded ranks along the sward, 

By unfrequented ways, 
We pass unchallenged by the guard, 

With flowers of love and praise. 

From fields that drank the warm red rain 

Their valor won release, — 
No bugle call can break again 

Their golden dream of peace. 

AT DAWN. 

All tired of life and full of weariness, 
How oft we come to blessed night's repose 
And 'ncath the veil that sleep about us throws, 

Lose all our cares in sweet forgetfulness. 

So far removed from busy jar and stress 



96 ^ SHEAF OF POEMS. 

While sleep rebuilds the wasted tower of strength, 
We scarce believe when morning dawns at length, 

The stars have trod their round of watchfulness! 
So when we waken full of rest at last 
In matchless glory of the cloudless dawn — 

This earthly span of being over-past, 

Its luring phantoms evermore withdrawn, — 
Refreshed by airs of that diviner sphere, 

How like a vanished dream will all the past appear! 

APRIL DAYS. 

April morning rich and rare. 
Sunrise glory in the air. 
Birds of song are on the wing, 
Ah, the melodies they bring. 
Through the quiet morning hush 
Note of sparrow, song of thrush. 
When the robin's strain of praise 
And the blue-bird's liquid lays ; 
Sweet the peewee's song and then 
The nervous twitter of the wren. 

All the woodlands feel again 
The touch of April sun and ram. 
On the forest sloi:)es are seen 
Nature's softest tints of green ; 
Bursting buds are here and there 
Waving in the golden air, 
Tufted plumes and fairy frills 
Seen against the leaning hills. 
Buds that hid in many a fold 
Petals of the rarest gold. 
Tints of azure or of flame, 



SOME AFTER-SUPPER LINES, 97 

Foam or flush of maiden shame 
Now reveal their wealth between 
Bursting bodices of green. 

Where the runnel's winding ways 
Gurgle under budding sprays, 
And its limpid crystal drips 
O'er the ledge's mossy lips, 
Gladdening all the quiet glooms 
There the alder hangs its plumes. 
And the drooping willow grows 
Greener where its laughter flows. 

In the dells are lifted up 
Many a sweet and tender cup, 
Where the timid wild-flowers grow 
By the lingering drifts of snow ; 
'Neath the dead leaves hidden, twines 
The modest may flower's rustic vine. 
While its blooms in glad surprise. 
Look up to the April skies, — 
Sweetest wild-flowers wooed and won 
By the fickle April sun. 
All the hosts of growing things 
Feel a stirring as of wings, 
And are wakened from their dreams 
By the warm and sunny gleams 
Of April sunshine in the air, — 
Springtime's splendor everywhere. 

SOME AFTER-SUPPER LINES. 

I MET a man the other day 

Whose face with nipture beamed, 

7 



98 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

I wish that all were half as glad 
As that dear fellow seemed ; — 

He took me kindly by the hand, 
His smile was gay and light, 

And whispered, '' Would I come and see 
The Philos feast to-night?" 

I shook my head — I couldn't tell — 

And then he opened wide 
His bearded lips and said^ " Of course 

You'll feast yourself beside ! " — 
That settled it : — I'd truly come ! — 

Perhaps you may have heard 
Some one regret the famine here 

Because I kept my word ! 

But back of this I queried well 

What fare might here be had ; 
In sooth to say, I learned too much, 

It only made me sad. 
Who could but grieve at such a time,- — 

His eyes with sorrow fill, 
That prosy speech must end the day, 

That toast was on the bill ? 

" Of course," he said, " You'll make a si^eech, 

And write it out with care, 
Impromptu things will never do 

For this high-toned affair ! " 
And furthermore he grieved to say, 

Then closed his eyes and sighed, 
"The Philos think a joke is green 

Unless it's cut and dried ! " 



^OME AFTER-SUPPER LINES. 99 

Since then I've racked my weary brain, 

While fancy wandered far, 
In search of some propitious trail 

Beneath some kindly star. 
But thought won't always come at will 

No more than cream will rise 
On milk already skimmed to death 

And blue as April skies ! 

You'll find it thus, — the sprites that keep 

Thought's spindles whirling round. 
Will sometimes take a holiday, 

Not one can then be found ! 
Then though it be a song, or joke. 

Or speech, or what you will, 
No grist can then be ground because 

No sprite will turn the mill ! 

Who has not mourned when all too late 

His faulty prose or rhyme, 
The brilliant things he might have said 

If he had thought in time ? 
So when this feast is fully past 

And all the mischief done, 
The merry sprites will homeward flock, 

And turn the mill for fun ! 

Most surface things are flat and stale, — 
This doubtless you may know, — 

But still we have to take the foam 
To get the undertow. 

The rarest thought comes always late, 
I had no time to borrow, — 



100 ^ SHEAF OF POEMS. 

Please try this banquet o'er again, 
And call on me to-morrow ! 



AT THE GATE. 

Down through the skies, from Heaven's portal 
straying, 

In beauteous guise she came, 
Nor long enough her term of earthly staying 

To take a shade of blame. 

The summer voices caught a note of sweetness 

From her first spoken words, — 
Far richer, sweeter, in their full completeness, 

Our darlings than the birds. 

Where morning dwells is always golden bright- 
ness — 

She was our household dawn ; 
Fairer she grew than lily in its whiteness, 

Till from our sight withdrawn. 

Astray from Heaven, the angel love supernal 

Through her brief absence yearned, 
Till calling her they crowned with life eternal 

Her brow when she returnedo 

And now she lives the blessed life immortal, — 

Though tears will fall above her — 
Forever safe within the golden portal. 

Where still the angels love her. 

Somewhere our way shall brighten like the dawn- 
ing 



TO JOHN G. WHITTIER. 101 

When dusky night has flown, 
And we shall greet the ever-cloudless morning 
And clasp again our own ! 

Meanwhile the years grow weary with delaying, 

The years that we must wait, 
Till far beyond the shadows, Heavenward straying. 

We meet her at the gate. 

TO JOHN" G. WHITTIER. 

O MINSTREL crowned with snow-white years, 

And praised by many a tongue ; 
How many eyes forget their tears 

For words which thou hast sung. 

How ring for right and truth thy lays 

Along the toilful past, 
What sunshine upon shadowed ways 

Thy mellow songs have cast. 

For briars of doubt and thorns of care 

That weave a tangled maze. 
Thy calm sweet faith and hopeful prayer 

Have given flowers of praise. 

For me, O poet, song arrayed. 

The charm thy words impart, 
Like singing birds of June have made 

Glad summer in my heart. 

And still I hold, though years will pass 

Thy smile and cheer that day, 
'Mid waving shadows on the grass. 

And breath of new-mown hay. 



102 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

O restful hour !^how swift it sped : 

But when I left thy door, 
My doubtful starlight overhead 

Had turned to dawn once more ! 

So while the waning years depart 

Across the winter snow, 
Thy words of welcome in my heart 

Make cheerful afterglow. 

breathe thy words : — His ear will heed 
The prayer by love upborne, — 
That Heaven will down the slope still lead 
As up the hills of morn." 

Yea, more for thee my heart would claim, 

But lip and tongue forbear, 
My fairest speech would fail to frame 

The still unuttered prayer. 

One boon I crave : — forgive to-night 
What best had been untold ; — 

The head may err, — the heart is right, 
And love is sometimes bold. 



OUR REFUGE. 

Though guiding suns and systems in their flight 

Through realms sublimely fair, 
No earth-born atom drifts beyond the sight 

Of His most tender care. 

No trill grows silent in the sparrow's song, 
Nor timid eye grows dim. 



ENFRANCHISED. 103 

No lily pales amid the meadow throng 
But it is known of Him. 

He is our refuge ; — safe on either hand, 

By noonday, or by night, 
Xo pestilence can smite us where we stand, 

Nor poisoned arrow's flight. 

His presence wraps us like a garment round ; 

Together day by day 
We journey on, while sweeter streams abound 

And fairer grows the way. 

ENFRANCHISED. 

It comes at last, so long delayed, 

By red ways battle-trod, 
By cannon peal and flashing blade, 

The victory of God. 

land beloved, ye knew full well 
God's vengeance sure and strong 

Turned never backward, where it fell 
It crushed the foulest wrong. 

And still ye trod through clouded years 

The wanton ways of shame. 
Till voice of blood and voice of tears 

Called down the avenging flame. 

Well have ye learned by storm and blood 

In fierce war's fiery van. 
How vain to lift for help to God 

The chains that shackle man. 



104 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

Lift up your heads, O dusky race ! 

Above Wrong's fading frown 
Sits Justice with her patient face, 

With manhood's robe and crown ! 



ONLY TWO SUMMERS. 

Sweetest Rosebud ! it was naeet 
She should come when all things sweet 
Had their waking — had their birth 
For the glory of the earth. 

So when springtime's bud and spray 
Were touched with beauty by the May,- 
When the early crocus' gold 
Shook above the quickened mold 
And the violets dewy wet 
In the wayside nooks were set ; — 
When arbutus' breath revealed 
All its blossoms though concealed 
Under dead leaves old and gray 
Of the summers passed away ; — 
With the bloom of apple-trees 
And the hum of golden bees, 
With the cherry clumps o'errun 
With foamy blossoms in the sun. 
With the sweetest music trilled 
By the song-birds as they build 
'Mid the branches' woven shade, 
Then in angel light arrayed, 
Down from Heaven's pearly gate 
Strayed one day the baby Kate. 



ONLY TWO SUMMEBS. 105 

Little do we dream or know 
IIow the lilies bloom and grow, — 
How from sun and air and mold 
Build they cups of pearl and gold 
Neither can we know or say 
How our Rosebud day by day, 
Grew to beauty in the land 
Silently as flowers expand, 
Only this we know is true, 
Never bud or blossom grew 
Where the golden sunbeams fall — 
She was fairer than them all. 

Sweeter than the sweetest thought 
"Was the music that she brought. 
Truly dimpled hands outreach 
With more eloquence than speech. 
Do not dainty finger-tips, 
Rosy cheeks and rosy lips, — 
Cooing tones, like mated birds, 
That lack the rounded form of words. 
Little pattering feet at loss 
How the rill of light to cross 
That the sunshine quivering o'er 
Pours across the shaded floor, 
Match for beauty, song and worth, 
All the treasures of the earth ? 

Who can tell the thoughts and plans 
That busied little brain and hands, 
While two summers' shade and shine 
Stained the tulip cups with wine? 
While her thoughts grew up to reach 



106 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

Utterance in prattling speech, — 
Sweeter far the lisping words 
Than the rippling song of birds — 
Summer faded ; — well-a-day, 
Swift the seasons glide away. 
Silently the golden days 
Swam away in dreamy haze, 
And the winter's rain and sleet 
Crushed the dead flowers under feet. 

White drifts now are piled between 
Two summers' damasked robes of gre 
Did she hear sweet voices call- 
Voices from the jasper wall ? 
Did the angels wish her home, 
And softly beckon her to come ? 

How could roses boom and grow 
In an atmosphere of snow ? 
They that have the Master's care 
Bloom in Heaven's own lischt and air. 



UNDER THE WILLOWS. 

Where wild-birds build in quiet dells, 
And soft, sw^eet airs around them stray,- 

In cool glades where the twilight dwells, 
We dream the hours away. 

Within these wild- wood temple halls 
Where music breathes in undertone, 

How cool the noon-day shadow falls 
On mossy crag and stone. 



UNDER THE WILLOWS. 107 

The graceful birch with silver stem 

Is fringed with wild vines trailing o'er— 

Its broad tent wears the ivied hem 
It wore in days of yore. 

Its tangled clumps have thicker grown, 
And hang like sunset's ruddy flames, 

Against the carved trunk's snowy zone 
And over sculptured names. 

O, sweep the trailing fringe aside,— 

The letters trace through dark brown stain, 

While sunshine floods with golden tide 
The fading lines again. 

h ! rose-red lips and laughing eyes ! 
Sweet angel faces, round me stand ! 
Fair forms that passed beyond the skies 
From childhood's sunny land. 

One wears the same thick, curly hair 
And clear, glad smile he ever wore ; 

And one, the fairest of the fair, 
Looks toward the peaceful shore. 

One stands as in the long-lost years. 
His brow by light-airs softly fanned ;— 

One clasping in her childish fears. 
Her brother's sun-browned hand. 

Through golden years that would not stay, 
These arches rang with youthful games, 

And resting here one summer day, 
We rudely carved our names. 



108 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

Adown the hillside, through the shade, 
The gleaming mill-stream winds and turns, 

Tangling its vine of silver braid 
Among the drooping ferns. 

Bare feet tread lightly by the shore. 

Sweet lilies wave from wet, white hands. 

And childhood's voices ring once more 
Along the embroidered sands. 

The waves glide on, the lilies fall 

And float far down the winding stream — 

The old-time voices fainter call 
The echoes through my di'eam. 

Ah ! many years the robin's nest 

Has swung in winds that moaned with cold. 
And Junes, above the dreamers' rest, 

Have tossed the daisy's gold. 

Far through the vista's airy sweep. 
Beyond the dusky twilight's gloom, 

The meadows in their greenness sleep 
And wave their clover blooms. 

And farther where the marble stands 
Beneath the willow's drooping spray, 

The sleepers wait for angel hands 
To roll the stone away. 

AFTER THE WAR. 

It is done ! 
Hell has lost and heaven has won ! 
Thunder it from every gun ! 



AFAEB THE WAR. 109 

Let tlie cannon's wrathful lips 
Tell of treason's dark eclipse, 
Let its black throat belch and blaze 
In a carnival of praise 

Loud and long : — 
God is just and truth is strong ! 

Ring, O bells ! 
On the throbbing air of spring- 
Breath of bloom— your gladness fling. 
Beat the warm air with your praises 
Till it bursts the budding daisies, 
Pearl and gold and hangs the roses 
Where each patriot form reposes 
'Mid the storm of shot and shell, 

Where he fell! 

Lips of prayer ! 
Let your praises everywhere 
Ring through all the crystal air. 
See ! the rifted clouds withdrawn ! 
Lo I the hill-tops bright with dawn ! 
And over all the war-swept scene 
Falls the light of peace serene ! 
Awake and praise— the storm is spent, 
God's smile is in the firmament ! 

Sing, O Land ! 
God, by his almighty hand. 
Hath builded thee a temple grand ! 
By His pillared cloud and flame 
He hath led thee out from shame— 
From oppression's night of gloom. 



liO A SHEAF OF POEMS. 



Through the Red Sea's crimson foam ! 
redeemed, awake a 
The Lord is Kins:! 



O land redeemed, awake and sing, 



Sing, O birds ! 
Warble out the sweetest words 
Captive ears have ever heard. 
To the weary bondman call, 
Where the orange blossoms fall : — 
" Hearts of anguish, brows of pain, 
God's own hand hath loosed thy chain ! 
Flit and sing, O birds of spring, 
Well may all the heavens ring 

With the nation's jubilee ! 

Columbia's free ! 
God be praised for liberty ! 
Ye who waited sad and long 
In your heritage of wrong, 
Chained and bleeding, lashed and torn. 
Watching for the coming morn. 
Clash your cymbals — broken chains ! — 
With Miriam sing — Jehovah reigns — 
" He hath triumphed gloriously ! " 

Mountain spars ! 
Bear aloft o'er battle's scars 
The Flag of Beauty !— Flag of Stars ! 
Forever glow, O web of light. 
More proudly burn, ye star-fires bright, 
More grandly wave, o'er land and sea, 
Thou emblem of true liberty ! 
From dust and blood ye rise to wave 
Henceforth above no bleeding slave ! 



THE NEW SLTCCESSION. HI 

DAY BY DAY. 

Do we gather and glean from the golden days 
The measure of good tlieir connng brings, 

Or grovel and grope in the crooked ways, 

Unfanned by the breath of the passing wings ? 

For the angels pass with the shining hours. 
And sweet dews fall for the buds that yearn. 

And touch with beauty the drooping flowers 
That only to heaven in waiting turn. 

The sweetest of manna our hearts may find 
Each morning sown for our utmost needs ; — 

But groping alone in the dark, and blind. 

We may fill our hands with the rankest weeds. 

Shall we trample the harvest's waving gold 
Under our feet for the sluggard's bread? 

Shall we feed on its bounties manifold. 

Or hunger, and shrivel, and starve instead? 

O gather no more the thistles of care. 
The briars of hate and nettles of wrath. 

When beautiful roses sweeten the air 
And border with beauty our daily path. 

THE NEW SUCCESSION. 

The temple arches of the midnight glow 
With diamond splendors o'er the hills of snow. 

A bended form with wrinkled visage waits 
Before the threshold of the starry gates. 



112 A SltEAF OF POEMS. 

The old light glows and kindles in his eyes, 
While past his gaze lare visions sweep and rise. 

And while he waits the soft and mellow chime 
Of jangled sweetness from the bells of time 

Breaks into song! — the gates of midnight swing, 
And he is gone ! — the young New Year is King ! 



TRUST. 

Once more the song birds set the air athrill 

With symphonies of praise. 
And buds and blossoms grow to music's trill 

In warm and sheltered ways. 

How fair the earth in tender green arrayed, 

How sweet the wild notes sung. 
When tufted branches weave a web of shade 

And new-made nests are swung. 

How know the wild-birds when to take the wing 

From Southern grove and clime? 
What voices tell the dreaming earth that spring 

Has brought the waking time ? 

Nay, question not, nor doubt but birds can tell 

The time to come and go, — 
The earth to wake the sweet flowers in the dell. 

Doth God not always know ? 



THE NE W TEA E. 113 

THE NEW YEAR. 

Rare splendor of the morning fall 

On Time's heir softly down, 
Who last night in the starry hall 

Of midnight took his crown ; 
Alone he stood beside the bier 

And bowed his shining head 
In silence o'er the crownless year 

So pallid, cold, and dead ! 

Light up, O dawn, his untrod way ! 

O bells of gladness, ring ! 
Crown him with joy this happy day, 

The royalest new king ! 
O ring till doubt and darkness flee, 

Till shadow-flags are furled, 
For over land and over sea 

The New Year rules the world ! 

Long live the King ! A happy reign ! 

A loyal realm his own ! 
No fields be his of gory slain, 

But peace his pillared throne : 
May no plague smite his heritage, 

No secret foe beguile, 
But ever on from youth to age 

May golden plenty smile ! 

O New Year, hailed with joy to-day, 

Through all thy kingdom's span, 
Work in thy reign the blessed sway 

Of love that conquers man ! 

Leave room no more for feud and hate, 
8 



114 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

Nor place for cruel scorn, 
Sweep hollow shams from church and state,- 
Be peace and good-will born ! 

Speed on, O year, the time foretold, — 

By bard and minstrel sung ; 
Lead on the coming age of gold. 

And give its praise a tongue : 
So shall dissension's voice be stilled, 

While strife and malice flee, 
And earth's green hills and vales be filled 

With sweetest charity. 



KING MIDAS. 

Once in the golden long ago, — 

So says mythology, 
The god Silenus old and gray 

Went out upon a spree, 
And got as drunk the records say, 

As any man might be ' 

And so it chanced while in this plight. 

And reeling round one day, 
Some merry clowns who crossed his path 

Made him an easy prey, 
And led him thus unto their king 

To see what he would say. 

King Midas saw his maudlin state 

With bitter grief and pain. 
And cared for him all tenderly 

Since drink had been his bane, 



KING MIDAS. 115 

Till old Silenus sober grew, 
And was himself again. 

And then a royal feast was spread 

All ordered by the crown, 
days of music, mirth, and cheer. 

Through all the goodly town, 
To honor this hilarious god 

Who now had sobered down ! 

The banquet done, the music hushed, 

The echoes silent grown. 
The generous god approached the king 

Who sat upon his throne. 
And begged that he would ask of him 

Some boon for favors shown. 

Now Midas was a greedy king 

As ever reigned of old — 
If we believe what chroniclers 

Have plainly writ and told— - 
For nothing here was half so fair 

To him as yellow gold. 

And so he craved of old Silene 

That all his hands should clasp. 
Or even touch, might turn to gold 

Within his very grasp : — 
A very foolish thing indeed 

For any king to ask ! 

Straightway the boon was granted him : 

Ah, happy king, you say. 
To have his coffers heaped and filled 

In such a charming way — 



116 SHEAF OF POEMS. 

Such countless stores of yellow gold 
And none to say him nay ! 

And so King Midas thought himself, 
And with his might and main 

He wrought with his celestial charm 
To win him golden gain, 

Till weary with his toil he paused 
With hunger's gnawing pain ! 

The board was spread, the outpoured wine 
Like rubies flashed and burned, 

But on his lips to yellow dust 
The mellow liquid turned ! 

His touch transformed his very food ! 
And left him starved and spurned ! 

And when to quench his burning thirst, 
His outstretched hands would seize 

The luscious fruit, he found it grown 
In far Hesperides, 

And cursed with golden food he fell 
Upon his royal knees, 

And earnestly besought the gods 
That they would him behold, 

While he confessed his greed and shame 
And penitently told 

How daily gifts of heaven surpass 
The touch that turns to gold. 

From morn till noon, from noon till night 

From dusky eve till dawn 
Swe])t in her robes of royal state 

Across the palace lawn, 



MY QUEST, 117 

He begged the gods unceasingly 
To have the boon withdrawn. 

The gods propitious heard his cry. 

And took his charm again, 
And bade him bathe where Pactolus 

Rolls on to meet the main, 
And lo ! its borders gleamed with gold, 

And golden still remain ! 

And still the river winds to-day. 

Though centuries have trod 
Across its shining sands of gold 

With lifted scepter rod, 
And babbles of a, foolish king 

And of a drunken god. 



MY QUEST. 

My friend with me one summer hour 
Strolled in the waning light, 

But while I paused to pluck a flower, 
He passed beyond my sight. 

I marveled not, the path did wind 
And turn so much ; I said. 

My eager steps the lost will find 
A little way ahead. 

So fared I as the foot-path led 
Till long the distance grew ; 

Alas ! his silent feet had sped 
Yet farther than I knew. 



118 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

And still my eager quest is vain ; 

No lisp of song or sound, 
Brings healing for my growing pain, 

The lost is yet un found ! 

So late he walked the busy street, 

The crowded ways of men, 
I half expect 'mid those I meet 

To see him come again. 

What spell can stay his willing feet ? 

O summer winds far blown, 
Waft back some word of comfort sweet, 

Some old familiar tone ! 

Somewhere he waits though foot-path turns 

And crao^s shut out the lio^ht : 
I know the star in beauty burns 

Though it be out of sight. 

So while I watch the ebbing sands 

A faith not wholly dead, 
Whispers sometimes of clasping hands 

Not very far ahead. 



A BATTLE RELIC. 

(Fort William Henry.) 
1757. 



A MISSILE of hate from the field of death. 
Battered and bruised among the spheres 

It hurtled against in the battle's breath, 
And gnawed by the rust of a hundred years 



A BATTLE RELIC. 119 

From the land it ploughed in the days of old, 
By the sylvan lake's bewitching grace, 

The ploughshare turned from the mellow mold 
The crusted shot from its hiding place. 

From its dreamless rest by the peaceful shore, 
From the sleep of a century lone and long, 

It comes again to the light once more, 
The theme of the minstrel's humble song. 

And this is the story it tells of shame. 
The murderous deeds of a savage clan. 

The withering blight on a soldier's name — 
The broken faith of a perjured man. 

Full softly the light of the dawning fell 

Across the lake in a rosy glow, 
And lighted the rude old fortress well. 

That morn of a hundred years ago — 

That morn when the winged missile flew 
To its dreamless rest from a throat of flame, 

While the notes that the bugle sternly blew 
Closed the gap it made in the ranks of fame: 

Ere the flush of the sunset laid its spell 

On the heights where the fair morn looked 
and smiled, 

The fortress's banners forever fell 

And its brave lay dead in the lonely wild. 

And the smoke of battle and ruin filled 

The valley of death, and the mouldering 
brand 



120 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

Marked the ghastly scene, while the wilderness 
thrilled 
With a shudder that crept through the des- 
olate land. 



More than a hundred years have swept, 
Across the vale where the fortress stood. 
While the murderous shot in the earth has slept, 
Crusted and marred and stained with blood. 

And this is the story the missile tells 

Of the sack and siege by the treacherous foe 

By the beautiful lake in the mountain dells 
More than a hundred years ago ! 



THE HERB CALLED HEART'S-EASE.' 

Nay, nay, 'tis but a legend old, 

A fable, not a truth, 
Like that which led the Spaniard long 

To seek the fount of youth. 

And so I said there is no land 

To-day that gives it room, 
No patient star looks down upon 

Its sweet and perfect bloom. 

Perchance in some far distant clime 

Its fragrance once was shed, 
But now it lingers here no more, 

The plant is long since dead. 



ON THE HILLS. 121 

The years passed on : — my garden close, 

Which I had thought so fan-, 
Took seed one day from passing wings, 

Which grew to something rare. 

A lowly plant at first it seemed, 

But grew from grace to grace, 
Till brooding peace o'er-shadowed it, 

And rested in tlie place. 

And strangely still its beauty grows 

And swings its bloom in air, — 
No more a myth, or legend old. 

For Heart's-ease groweth there ! 



ON THE HILLS. 

Along the hillside's tender green 
The winding footpath strays, 

Still mounting toward the breezy heights 
We climbed in other days. 

Across the clover fields of bloom 

The rarest odors pass, 
All silently as shadows drift 

Above the waving grass. 

Upon the wayside rocks I lean 

And watch the sunset glow, 
So like the golden light that fell 

On us so lonsf acjo. 

So fair ! and yet the perfect grace 
The olden landscape wore, 



A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

The years will never bring again, 
Nor yet my loss restore. 

For while the songs of brook and bird 

Are trembling on my ear, 
One sweeter strain of other days 

I can no longer hear. 

Could but the same old sunset fires 

Upon the hill-tops burn. 
And all the loss of vanished years 

To me again return, 

Alone I need not climb the way 

All wearily and slow ; — 
But you are on the hills of heaven, 

And I the hills below. 



TO H. W. LONGFELLOW ON HIS BIRTH- 
DAY. 

O rare sweet singer whom the nations honor. 

For whom the people pray. 
How many hands are lifted ujj in blessing 

Above thy head to-day ! 

For still a pilgrim on the busy highway, 

Now sloping toward the sea, 
Thou leanest to-day upon the Golden Milestone — 

Three-score and ten and three. 

It is thy birthday : where thy songs have w^andered 
Glad hearts will speak thy nmae. 



TO LONGFELLOW ON UTS BIRTHDAY. 123 

And twine affection's roses with the laurel 
Of thy undying fame. 

How fair thy crown ! How grand thy poet mission ! 

To wing with truth thy song ; — 
To lift the head bowed low in bitter anguish, 

To make the weary strong ! 

O songful gleaner in the fields of story ! — 

From meadows near and far, 
From starry voices softly o'er us bending, 

Tliou teachest what we are. 

Thy magic pen, like wand of the magician. 

Waves o'er the dark unseen, — 
And lo! in love's own royal grace and beauty. 

Walks forth Evangeline. 

For thy sweet song is hushed the voice of weeping 

By firesides lone and sad. 
Till doubt departs and sorrow is transfigured 

To hope that maketh glad. 

We joy with thee : — for even as love's evangel 

Breathes through thy mellow lay, 
From loyal hearts a silent benediction 

Descends on thee to-day ! 

So fare thee on, adown the slope descending, 

Led by His gracious hand. 
So ehalt thou bear at last " Hope's tender blossoms 

Into the Silent Land." 



124 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

'« WATCHMAN ! WHAT OF THE NIGHT ? " 

To-day the bugle's battle hymn 

Is ringing from its throat of gold, 
And War's red lips are fiercely grim 

With mutterings of the wrongs of old ; 
The measured tramp of armies breaks 

The quiet hush, the peaceful calm, 
The dreaming echo starts and wakes 

To hear the cannon's murderous psalm. 

It rings through all the stormy din, 

Above the wrathful billow's swell, 
The wild unrest of treason's sin — 

The loathed and hated spawn of hell ; 
Amid its solemn j^ause we hear 

The ragged curse of dying wrong, 
And then it swells so full and clear. 

We know 'tis Freedom's deathless song ! 

Though millions weej3, the noble slain 

Who wear their badge of glorious scars. 
Who sleej) and dream upon the plain 

Their loyal dreams beneath the stars; — 
The battle-troubled wave of time 

To-day which rolls and cannot rest. 
Shall bear through all the years sublime 

A deepening glory on its crest ! 

Lo ! gleaming shafts of cheering light 
Flash up to heaven their golden spires, 

They point to God through all the night — 
Eternal Freedom's altar fires ! 

And they shall burn despite the blood 



WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT. 125 

In crimson storms upon them rained, 
And nfiught can stay the arm of God 

From justice to the scourged and chained I 

We know the golden day will dawn, 

Though night be dark, and stars be dim. 
When Freedom, flooded by the morn, 

Shall wake like Memnon, with a hymn : 
For God is just who reigns on high, 

And wrath divine, whicii slumbered long. 
Is falling from the brightening sky 

Upon the reeling hosts of wrong. 

The clustering stars our banner bears 

In constellated light shall glow. 
Though Treason kindle direst wars 

And crimson rivers stream and flow. 
No star-bedimmed — no Pleiad lost ! 

No reign of chaos' wildest night 
Shall quench one beam of peerless cost, 

Or stain one s^^ray of purest light ! 

God speed the day whose dawning hour 

Shall flood with light the crimson rain, 
And see the avenging arm of power 

Sweep from Columbia every stain ; — 
And crush foul Treason's hydra head 

'Neath Freedom's bannered stars unfurled, 
And Right, and Might, and Justice wed 

Through all the kingdoms of the world. 

1864. 



126 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

PASSING THE LIGHT. 

As one who sails the blue waves of the sea, 

By wind and wave borne on across the foam, 
By night oft passes where the headlands lift 

Their steady lights by which he steers for home 
So we, borne on across the sea of years, 

Long tossed, but gaining on the homeland shore 
While stars dip down along the fading track 

And brighter constellations rise before. 
Pass once again the beacon's friendly light 

Whose genial glow lies on the waters cold, 
And kindles far along the homeward track, — 

On spar and sail the storms so oft enfold ; 
And on we drift where tides turn never back, 

And this way lie the shining capes of gold. 

FOR THE BRAVE. 

The murky clouds of war have flown, 

Our battle-flags are furled. 
The cannon's breath no more is blown 

Across the startled world. 

The stormy years of strife have fled. 

The peace which reigns to-day. 
Was won by blood of martyred dead 

Beneath the flowers of May. 

We breathe the freshened air that fills 

The summer dome of blue 
And fans with life our northern hills, 

Since they were brave and true. 



FOR A CRYSTAL WEDDING. 127 

For them the kindly May returns 

With generous sun and showers, 
And o'er our martyred heroes yearns 

With all her soul of flowers. 

We hold them brave and loyal yet, 

And twine with greener sprays, 
A fresh wreath round their memories, set 

With bud and bloom of praise. 



FOR A CRYSTAL WEDDING. 

When Adam left the guarded gate 

To wander far and wide. 
One ray of sunshine cheered his fate — 

Eve wandered by his side ; 
And though their weary feet did press 

The waste for many a mile. 
Love planted all the wilderness, 

And made the desert smile. 

O sacred bond of heavenly birth 

That makes the world so fair ! — 
The richest legacy to earth 

Since loss of Eden rare ; — 
Sweet boon to gladden high and low 

And light each clouded way, 
With home's bright altar-fires which glow 

Where wedded love holds sway. 

Since earth in darkness may have wheeled 

Through rayless realms of cold 
Had bridal bells no gladness pealed, 



128 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

Nor plighted vows been told; — 
We well may clasp the angel hand 

Of Love that reaches down, 
And hail the light of Eden-land 

Which comes our race to crown ! — 

Alas ! the years, how swift they pass, 

How fleet the seasons fly ! 
Old Father Time with scythe and glass 

Is always jogging by; 
No shady wayside cool and sweet 

Can ever lure to stay. 
Or pause to rest his weary feet 

A moment by the way. 

Still on and on his pathway runs 

Through lands of blight and bloom, 
'Neath tropic heat of summer suns 

And frozen wastes of gloom ; 
With bended form and wrinkled face 

And shadowed brow of pain, 
He journeys on with solemn pace 

And ne'er returns again ! 

We may not stay his silent flight 
Nor hope to lure him back, 

Yet memorv sifts her sands to-nis^ht 
Far down his beaten track; 

And lighted by their golden glow 
Again the past appears, 

Far winding through the vale below 
Of fair but vanished years ! 

We need no magic glass to see 
The valley leading down, 



FOE A CRYSTAL WEDDING. 129 

The bill-slope and the spreading tree, 
Ahe farm-house old and brown : — 

Just as it stood, to-day it stands, 
While vines are trailing low. 

To shut it in from meadow lands, 
As years and years ago. 

What plighted vows were whispered here ! — 

What sweet romances spun ! 
In that divinest atmosphere 

What ojolden dreams bei2fun ! — 
You know it all ; I need not tell 

The story never old, 
First learned in Eden's shady dell 

And since through ages told ! 

And so we joy with you to-night 

Full loyally and true, 
By day your pathway glows, with light, 

By night the stars shine through ; 
For Love hath winged the weary feet 

And sunshine crowned the day, 
While childhood's voices clear and sweet, 

Have gladdened all the way. 

Dear friends whom now we greet and cheer 1 

Heaven's blessing on your store. 
And still through every changing year 

God speed you more and more, — 
Till all the weary miles are passed 

And shadows merge in sun. 
Where life's long valley ends at last 

And golden heights are won ! 



130 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

DECORATION DAY. 

While through the loyal land to-day 
Whose peace no passion mars, 

The mellow bugles ring and play, 
The old flag lifts its stars. 

Above the green and grassy mounds 
Where hands are crossed in rest, 

The sweetest Mayflowers' woven crowns 
Are laid on valor's breast. 

The rarest blooms of sun and rain 

Are not too sweet nor fair. 
To deck the silent ranks of slain 

Who sleep in glory there. 

AYhere red war SAvept the wasted land 

With fever-breath of flame, 
They bore the battle's lifted brand 

In freedom's sacred name. 

The green earth gives them quiet room, 
And guards them far and near; 

She gives her bud and leaf and bloom, 
Nor holds her gifts too dear. 

And those who sleep where none may know. 
Unmarked by stone or name, — 

Who heed not how the seasons go — 
The voice of praise or blame, 

Kind nature keeps with tender care, 

The stars watch from above. 
And May-time sets her glad smile there 

With all its wealth of love. 



A NEIV YEAR'S GREETING. 181 

Above their dreams the grasses lean 

Through all the summer days, 
To keep their loyal memories green 

With tenderest meed of praise. 

And where they lie in all the land, 

On plain, or mountain's crest, 
Sweet May has spread with lavish hand 

Her flowers above their rest. 



A NEW YEAR'S GREETING. 

To J. G. W. 

From southern slopes still clad in sober brown, 
Where briefer winter breathes in milder gales 
Than those that sweep thy own New England vales 
And hills of white beneath a snowy crown, 
I send thee greeting: though the skies may frown 
And bitter chill hold all the land in thrall. 
One heart, in love, would blessing on thee call ; — 
God send on thee his peace and quiet down. 
Thrice Happy New Year ! O my friend, to thee ! 
Each golden hour from ill bear sweet release, 
May sunshine bid each dusky shadow flee, 
And o'er thee shine the blessed stars of peace. 
God crown thee well and make thy journey long, 
Whose four-score years have gladdened earth with 
song. 



132 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

TO A DEAD POET. 

O FBiEND who sang of "Summer Dreams," 

How hushed thy mellow lay, 
How dark the world without thee seems. 

Where strayest thou to-day ? 

We know not where thy footsteps are. 

But in thy manhood's prime, 
We know that thou hast wandered far 

Beyond the gates of time. 

So far, and yet no word of thine, 

Nor laurel freshly won. 
Breathed faintest hint, or secret sign, 

That half thy work was done ! 

Was that a prophecy inwrought 

Upon thy pictured page. 
Where glows the poet's golden thought 

With wisdom of the sage ? 

Three vases there hold precious hoard ; 

In two the wealth is told. 
And from the broken crystal poured. 

Is seen the ruddy gold. 

But one, unbroken, still is sealed, 

And holds its treasure fast. 
Till on the glowing page revealed, 

Behold the third, and last! 

And didst thou know, so young and strong, 
When life with love was sweet. 

That breaking this fair vase of song 
Would make thy task complete? 



DICKENS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 133 

It may be thus : we may not know 
What new sense nearness brings, 

Since some have felt the daisies grow, 
And heard the noise of wings ! 

Rest on, O friend 1 the guerdon won, 

And sweet thy rest shall be ; 
Dream on, thy work is nobly done. 

And love shall follow thee. 

Thy goal was not this shadow-land, 

But far beyond the blue. 
And thou hast reached the golden strand, 

And all thy dreams are true ! 

DICKENS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 

Amid the silent throng. 

Immortal grown in song. 

We trace his carven name. 

So dear to deathless fame. 

Praise cannot flatter him 

Beyond the border din, 

Though love's sweet flowers may shed 

Their fragrance round him dead. 

Within the solemn gloom 

That watches o'er his tomb. 

Since where he lived and wrought 
They bless him for his thought, 
Not less to-day, may we 
Revere his memory. 
Though dead his influence thrills 
O'er all the tented hills— : 



134 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

Where'er his native tongue 
In melody has rung, 
On every land and shore 
His fame lives evermore ! 

Who by his magic power 
Lighted the gloomy hour, 
And with his wizard pen 
Made glad the hearts of men 
On whom no ray was shed 
From starlight overhead ; — 
Who for the lowliest lot 
Touched the dark leprous spot 
Of want and woe and sin, 
And let the sunshine in ; — 
Who wrought as best he could 
To lure all men to good, 
And so by loyal ways 
From all hearts gathered praise- 
Him can no people claim. 
For world-wide is his fame. 

Proud England laid him down, 
Made royal by no crown 
Save that which genius brings 
Amid her queens and kings. 
With folded hands at rest 
Upon his manly breast — 
The minster gloom his pall, 
The kingliest king of all ! 

There in the Abbey old 
Where twilights soft enfold 
Beneath their dusky wings 



DICKENS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 135 

The orarnered dust of kinoes 
We muse amid the gloom 
Beside his loyal tomb, 
'Neath fretted arch and wave — 
His grand cathedral grave. 

Around him here and there 
In the great fane of prayer 
Are kings in days of old 
Under the marbles cold ; — 
Queens who reigned and died, 
Now lying side by side ; — 
Queen Bess of royal fame, 
And Mary of Scottish name, 
Long lines of princely sway, 
Whose thrones have j^assed away, — 
Almost their names unknown 
Except for car v en stone ; 
Soldiers whose brows austere 
Have gloomed a hemisphere ; 
The hero of peace so grand 
Brought home from Af ric's land ; 
Statesmen whose words are still 
Nerving the heart and will ; 
Poets whose songs sublime 
Will ring through coming time ; 
And him who saw afar 
Beyond the utmost star 
The law which all outruns, 
Threading the stars and suns ! 
Such is the silent throng 
Waiting around him long. 



136 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

But when the waning light, 
Through Chancel's window dight 
With storied pilgrim train 
Of old romance again, 
Touches with fading glow 
Statue and tomb below, 
While dusky twilight waits 
Before the starry gates 
In beauty wide unfold, 
What visions are unrolled ! 

Perchance 'twill only seem 
As but an idle dream : 
But when the organ's tone 
Trembles through every stone, 
And rolls its swelling wave 
Through chapel, crypt, and nave. 
The children of his brain 
Throng round him there again, 
And through the mystic glow 
Pass forms that you may know ! 
Yonder with shining face 
And form of manly grace, 
A portly form draws near, 
Whom sages nod to hear ! 
And one whose hopeful smile 
Beams sweetly all the while. 
Still trusting more and more 
For greater good in store. 
Another passes near 
Through the dusky atmosphere, 
His hungry youth is o'er, 
He pleadeth not for more, 



DICKENS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 137 

But in his manhood's pride, 
With beauty by his side, 
He seemeth satisfied. 

Hard-hearted, grim and old 
Bends Scrooge above his gold, 
While ghastly, pale and shy. 
Old Marley's ghost flits by ! 
Not least amid them all 
Is Dombey's little Paul ; 
So fair, yet full of pain. 
Borne on amid the train. 
He hears the waves at play 
Still wondering what they say. 

Now through the shadows dim 
Stalks Squeers, the master grim, — 
Type of the soulless greed 
That fattens on childhood's need, — 
While Fagin with thievish leer, 
And fiendish Quilp appear. 

There pillowed on her bed. 
Passes a shiny head. 
As though some sunny sheen 
Had softly slid between 
The shadows, making clear 
The dusky atmosphere ; 
They stand about her there 
As tranced in solemn prayer, 
And when the shadow falls 
Darker on Abbey walls. 
With heart-ache none can tell 
They weep for Little Nell. 



138 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

The shadows deepen where 
Waves Little Dorrit's hair ; 
Round Barnaby's wild joy, 
And Dot's entrancing boy ; 
Round Mckleby, the tried, 
And Coi3perfield beside, 
And hosts I cannot name, 
All born to deathless fame. 

Moonrise is in the sky ; — 
The phantoms fade and fly, 
As stars are lost in light 
They vanish out of sight ; 
And drawing near his grave 
In the great temple's nave. 
My withered buds of praise 
I lay beside the bays 
Which faithful love has thrown 
Upon his sculptured stone, 
And leave amid the gloom 
The dead magician's tomb. 

THE DYING YEAR. 

" The King is dead I — 
Long live the King! " 

The year's last sunset burning low 

Has faded from the sky, 
And all the hill-tops white with snow 

Have blushed to see it die. 

Where first he stood in kingly might 
To take his shining crown, 



THE DYING YEAR. 139 

The year will pause awhile to-night 
To lay his sceptre down. 

And in the lonely midnight hall — 

His royal s23lendors fled — 
Old winter's white-frilled robe will fall 

To hide his crownless head. 

The stars will lend their fitful gleam 

To gild the midnight snows, 
So softly folded o'er his dream 

In sleep's sublime repose. 

So passes all his glorious prime 

As endless years have done, 
Since first the morning hills of time 

Grew golden in the sun. 

And while we fondly linger near, 

The final dream unsought, 
We hold the Old Year's memory dear 

For all the good he wrought. 

So kindly was his gentle sway, ^ 

So glad his golden reign. 
We linger by his closing day 

And wish him crowned again. 

Lo ! how through all the waiting land 

Beneath his lifted crown. 
His train went forth — in beauty grand 

To scatter largess down ! 

On rich and poor alike has laid 
The bounty he has won, 



140 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

While once again the world has made 
The circuit of the sun. 

He called the earth from slumbers deep, 
He broke her frozen dream, 

And warmed the sluggish pulse of sleep 
"With springtime's sunny gleam : 

Till all the tides of life grew strong 
Through nature's hidden ways, — 

Till wind and wave and bird and song 
Were glad with summer's praise. 

From songful rain and golden sheen 
When winter storms were furled, 

He wrought the meadow's woven green, 
The harvests of the world. 

The luscious fruits of autumn-time 
Were scattered in his train, 

And where he passed in every clime 
Were garners heaped with grain. 

If ever o'er his peaceful path 
■^ The baleful fires have spread 

Of lurid passion's kindled wrath, 
Of battle's stormy tread ; — 

If in some vine-wreathed land afar 
Where summer laughed and leaned 

Beneath the deadly plague's red star. 
The silent Reaper gleaned ; 

If 'neath the sunshine's gracious smile 



A DYING VEAB. 141 

Want's ghastly presence stood awhile 
And cast its spell of pain ; 

His breath across the azure bay — 

The shoreless sea of blue, 
Far swept the murky clouds away 

And let the sunbeams through. 

And over wave and over wood 

He poured the mellow shine, 
That stayed the reaper where he stood 

Amid the hills of vine. 

From stores of plenty's golden grain 

His bounty ripened well. 
He stilled the cry of Imnger's pain 

Where blight and famine fell. 

And every land beneath the sun 

Has felt his genial sway, 
His gracious ministries have run 

World-wide their shining way. 

And when the starry line drew near 

No sandalled foot hath trod. 
He brought the kindly Christmas cheer, 

The gracious gift of God. 

When peace on earth, good-will below, 

On wings of song uprose, 
He paused above the hills of snow 

As waiting for its close. 

Awhile beneath the patient blaze 
Of starry midnight's spell, 



142 ^ SHEAF OF POEMS. 

He turned below his longing gaze 
On lauds he loved so well. 

But when the solemn chimes were told 

Above his royal head, 
Low drooped his sceptre's frosted gold- 

The crownless king was dead ! 

Alas ! alas ! the gray Old Year ! 

This wreath of song we bring 
To lay upon his white-robed bier ; — • 

Then cry — " Long live the King ! " 



LINES 

Read on the Tenth Anniversary of St. John's Literary 
Association, Sept. 17, 1885, Concord, Pa. 

Alas, for me ! no help is mine, 

I build my tower alone ; 
Not one of all the singing nine 

Will lift a hand, or stone. 

How sweetly some are born to shine 

Without a thought or care ; 
While some in sorrow must repine, 

Or borrow what they wear. 

The dandelion's disc of gold 

When all its race is run, 
Is but a nodding gray-beard old — 

A seed-globe in the sun ! 

The ragged thistle, brave and gay, 
Keeps all its sabres keen — 



LINES. 143 

When frailer blooms are passed away, 
Its armor still is green. 

The brightest colors quickly fade, 

All fashions have their day ; 
The dude will mildew in the shade. 

When sober sense will stay. 

What limitations hedge us round ! 

But set the pinion free, 
How might we scale the closing bound ! — 

What sages might we be ! 

The soaring thought would rise and grow — 

Its wings unfurl in air ; — 
The mind immortal grasp and know 

The how and why and where ! 

Canst tell how white-rimmed daisies grow ? 

Where drift the clouds away ? 
Why all the leaves do whisper so 

Or what the wild waves say ? 

In vain, in vain, we question so ; 

The anxious thought returns ; — 
But oh, to scale this height and know — 

How hope aspires and burns ! 

So runs our dream — we sleep and wake — 

Nor know the how or why 
Of half the common things that break 

Upon our longing eye ! 

Still hangs our being's pictured scroll — 
So pass the shadows by, 



i 



144 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

. Wbile golden years of life unroll 
Beneath a changeful sky. 

A wondrous web of woven days, 
All crossed by changeful bars 

Of rising morns, and noontide blaze— 
Of setting suns and stars. 

Whereon a glowing picture stands, 

A strange design appears, 
All blindly wrought by careless hands 

Through light or clouded years. 

A greening leaf — a bud full blown — 
A blotch of autumn's gold — 

So soon the perfect flower is grown, 
So soon its life is told ! 

Behold the lilies, how they grow ! 

Rare green and gold their crown, 
Or whiter than the drifted snow, 

They drop their petals down. 

Their glory passes quickly by. 
So soon their robes are lost ! 

While hazels bloom 'neath winter's sky 
Unmindful of the frost. 

So in the meadow's pictured lin 
And in the gardens crowned, 

In blooms that neither toil nor spin 
Our changing state is found. 

Above the fair green-bladed hills 
Our footsteps tread to-day, 



LINES. 145 

What light the bended heaven fills ! — 
What shadows flee away ! 

The rugged path with song is rife 

'Neath fortune's favored smile, 
While birthdays build the shrines of life 

Where each may rest awhile. 

The way is long — so pause we here, 

Though heaven be clear or wild, 
We come from far — we come from near, 

With greetings for our child ! 

Ten years ago, 'mid autumn days, 
Whose glory crowned the earth — 

Amid the Indian summer's haze 
Our nurseling had her birth. 

This is her birthday ! — only ten ! — 

A goodly child and strong ; 
What grace through all the walks of men 

She bears amid the throng I 

If half a score of years unfold 

Such matchless beauty rare, 
When other added years are told 

What will the measure bear ? 

All hail St. John's ! — the name we tell 

Still lingers on the tongue. 
To-night for her our praises swell, 

And birthday bells are rung ! 
10 



146 ^ SHEAF OF POEMS. 

GLADSTONE. 

Brave chieftain thou in battle's stormy van ! 

Thy snowy hair is more than regal crown — 

White badge of triumph over error's frown, 
Through toilful years where thou hast wrought for 

man ! 
Opposed by greed and blinded faction's clan 

Bravely thy words the burning wrong assail ! 

Take heart — hope on ! The right shall yet 
prevail ! — 
Truth lives forever ! — wrong the briefest span. 

Thou canst not fail ! —the work so well begun, 

The passing years can never long delay ; 
Thine be the triumph Avhen the strife is done, 

When hate shall yield to love and pass away. 
Proud England then, forgetful of her shame, 
Shall crown her son and keep his deathless fame ! 

1886. 



TO A NONAGENARIAN. 

Thy pilgrim feet have journeyed far 
Beyond the measured span — 

The three-score years and ten that bar 
The weary life of man. 

As one upon some mountain's crown 
Stands in the golden gleam. 

Of broad horizons bending down. 
Aglow with sunset's dream, — 



FOR A SILVER WEDDING. 147 

So standest tbou upon the height 

Whose glory now appears, 
Transfigured in the mellow light 

Of ninety golden years ! 

A mount of vision ! far and wide 

The goodly landscape lies, 
Far reaching to the morning tide 

Beneath the glowing skies. 

While fair the winding valleys sleep 

In deep repose below, 
May all the forward slope still keep 

The sunset's rosy glow ! 

So shall the light of eventide 

Fall round you where you stand, 

Till all the starry gates swing wide 
To show the Morning Land ! 



FOR A SILVER WEDDING, 

Dear friends from out the blinding storm 

Of winter's sullen sway. 
From hearts with old-time memories warm, 

We send you cheer to-day. 

A Happy New Year ! well you know 
What joy the greeting bears — 

How all the past stands out aglow 
Above its vanished cares= 

Well may you turn and backward gaze 
O'er paths your feet have trod — 



148 ^ SHEAF OF POEMS. 

O'er sunward slopes and shaded ways, 
Beneath the smile of God. 

From toil-worn heights of glowing noon 
Row short the way appears, 

Where two have trod with sandal-shoon 
The half of fifty years ! 

So take your wayside rest to-day, 
O friendsj and still be strong : — 

God's peace make fair your future way, 
And ever glad with song. 

As down the winding slope you turn 
Where autumn's sun-tints gleam, 

May all the kindly lights that burn 
Show true your fairest dream ! 

Fly on, O wedded days of gold. 
As shadows sweep the lawn : — 

God grant when all the years are told, 
You hear the bells of dawn ! 



MORNING. 

Faintly stars are gleaming 

On the brow of day. 
Softly shadows stealing 

From the world away ; 
Rosy light of morning 

Gilds the clouds unfurled 
Waving like a banner 

O'er the wakincc world. 



ABSENCm 149 

Golden sunbeams falling 

Over hill and plain, 
Wreathing forms of heauty 

Float to heaven again ; 
Pearly dew-drops sleeping, 

'Mid the blushing flowers, 
Flashing gems of beauty, 

Gleaming from the bowers. 

weetly bird-notes chiming, 

With the gushing streams, 
Rippling through the shadows. 

Floating, murmuring dreams ; 
Loftly floats the music 

On the balmy air — 
Morning, glorious morning, 

Smiling everywhere ! 



ABSENCE. 

O Summer days, why linger so ? 
Why idly o'er the meadows go ? 
When Love was here and hand in hand 
We walked together through the land, 
You sped so swiftly on your way 
We sued to have you pause and stay. 

O would St thou then the secret know, 
Why thus so dreamily we go ? 
Why by the breath of roses fanned 
We linger idly o'er the land ? — 
Ah ! fleet wings weary in their flight 
Always when Love is out of sight ! 



150 A SHEAjr OF POEMS. 

Then hasten Love and homeward flee 
To arms that wait to welcome thee ! 
N"or flight of days, or swift or slow, 
Shall keep us from the joys we know, 
When side by side and hand in hand 
We walk again the summer land. 

A SUMMER MADRIGAL. 

I'm wandering by the brookside 

With Mary Ann to-day. 
The while I fan my classic brow 

And brush the flies away, 
And I shall linger here full long 

If Mary Ann will stay I 

The singing brook runs on and on 

As in a quiet dream, 
And all the meadow hills around 

Are mirrored in the stream — 
The very lilies in the brook 

Give back a fairer gleam ! 

The shadows lie so sweet and cool, 
The grove with rapture thrills, 

The fishes seek the reedy pools 
To cool their crimson gills. 

While singing ducks glide down the stream 
And liquidate their bills ! 

The August sun is at its best. 

The pigeons flit and coo, 
Pet here along the brookside 

The tempered air will do — 



THE AGE OF GOLD. 151 

Though doubtless hot for tliree, or more, 
It's cool enough for two ! 

We heed no more the heated term 
Though mercury rise like leaven, 

Or soar upon its seething wing 
Way over ninety-seven — 

Have we not, 'mid the shadows here, 
Almost a taste of heaven ? 

What vistas ope— what scenes appear? 

What airy rainbows span 
Our winding path with not a breath 

To mar the dream, or ban — 
I think it most exquisite here — 

And so does Mary Ann ! 

THE AGE OF GOLD. 

In every land — in every favored clime, 

All down the ages since the birth of time. 

Each puny king has sought to set his name 

High over all upon the lists of fame. 

And thrones and kingdoms tottering to their fall 

Have deemed their age the wisest, best of all. 

So through all lands where war's red course has run 
And conquest spread its borders 'neath the sun, 
Where might has ruled as with an iron sway. 
While right, defenseless, could but weep and pray. 
The bards have sung, and sages wise have told 
The shining splendors of the Age of Gold. 

So classic Greece amid the purple seas 
Saner in her time the age of Pericles. 



152 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

When shone the sun on such a land as this, 
So grandly crowned with her Acropolis ? 
There proudly sprang the Parthenon sublime — 
The marble wonder of the latest time — 
Whose sculptured friezes as a written scroll 
Her deeds of glory to the world unroll. 
Rare splendors live on history's glowing page 
To mark the era of her golden age, 
While fane and temple, rent and crumbled down, 
Declare the glory of her old renown. 

The later bards have sung in measured rhyme 
The grander glories of the Roman time, 
When wise Augustus ruled with golden sway, 
And Rome was changed to marble from its clay. 
Then sprang and grew those grand, heroic lays, 
Which from the ages take their meed of praise; 
Then Tully's thunders in the senate hurled. 
Shook thrones and kingdoms and the Roman world ; 
Her name and fame the conquering legions bore 
In royal triumph to the farthest shore. 
And tribute brought from olden lands and new 
Proclaimed how far the Roman eagle flew. 

Her glory faded — still her bards remain 
And live immortal in the epic's strain ; 
And Ctesar's j^alace even in decay 
But shadows faintly that imperial day. 
Whose brightness faded with its slow decline. 
While dust is heaped on Caesar's royal line ! 

Fair Albion throned amid the stormy roar 
Of northern seas that beat her rocky shore, 
Full proudly gloried in the golden sheen 



THE AGE OF GOLD, 153 

That centred round her stately, virgin queen ; — 
An age of learning worthily enrolled 
As royal England's boasted age of gold, 

When valiant Sidney told in golden phrase 
The simple story of Arcadian days, 
And dreaming Spenser saw with vision keen 
The charming guest of beauty's Fairy Queen ; — 
When Shakespeare reared the drama's mighty fame 
And peopled it from his prolific brain, — 
And later, Milton sang, in strains sublime, 
The grandest epic known to any time ; — 
Search through the ages — still it will be found — 
No brighter era has her annals crowned. 

And so all lands reveal on hisitory's page 

Some favored time they call the golden age, — 

Some shining era glowing with renown, 

Whose light and beauty are the nation's crown. 

Yet grander far than all the ages flown 

The grand to-day — the age we call our own 

How far surpassing any ancient dream 

The magic wonders of the age of steam ! 

The age that tames the lightning's fiery will 

And zones the world with thouo'ht's electric thrill ! 

How grander yet than deed of olden fame 

The spoken word borne on the wing of flame ! 

And far transcendins: all the ao^es done. 

The electric light, resplendent as the sun ! 

If any age from time's first morning down 
Might claim to wear the brightest, starriest crown, 
Or highest write its most resplendent name 
In curves of light on beaded roll of fame, 



154 A SHEAF OF POEMS. 

That age is passing in its splendor now — 
We claim the crown for fair Columbia's brow ! 
For resting now from battle's wrathful jars, 
She wears in peace her constellated stars. 

But not for her the golden age we claim — 
A grander light shall gild, at last, her name, 
To finer grace her changing beauty grow, 
In purer light her living annals glow. 
The mighty past, the present age sublime, 
Are but the prelude to a grander time. 
Whose dawning splendors yet will surely rise 
To gladden earth and fill the waiting skies. 

And when its morn shall grow to noon-tide ray, 
The Prince of Peace shall bear divinest sway; — 
Then through all lands as bards have sung and told) 
Shall come at last the one true Age of Gold! 

All hail the aay whose faintest dawn appears 
To brown the cloudless glory of the years. 
When man shall rise forevermore unbound, 
Nor serf, nor slave, in any land be found ; 
When Circe's cup, where seeming jewels shine, 
Shall tempt no more to grovel with the swine ; 
When wrong shall die, and war forever cease, 
And earth shall know the golden reign of peace 



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